Shoots and Ladders
by Lnzy1
Summary: G1. Sometimes first impressions aren’t always the right ones, but around the Ark, one truth remains firm and everlasting: When in doubt, duck. Spike centric series of related one-shots.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One: Traffic Tickets and Color Wheels

The day had begun much like the day before and the one prior to that. For the most part, it was very pleasant. Strange, alien, and mind boggling, but pleasant.

Everything around him was big, very big. Just looking up at the ceiling too long made him dizzy, which was kind of fun for a while until he started feeling nauseas. After taking a moment to secure his equilibrium, Spike returned to his current pass time: Robot Watching. Well, they referred to themselves as Mechs and even seemed to have taken offense when Spike used the 'R' word. He was careful not to do that again. When he could help it.

It had barely been a week since the world had woken up to having Giant Alien Ro—er, _Mechs_ wandering around their backyard and Spike was still riding a giddy high that'd been with him since he and his father had been rescued from the waters of the Pacific ocean after the oil rig they'd been on was attacked…by other giant alien Mechs. Evil giant alien Mechs. Who called themselves Decepticons. Spike made a mental note to ask one of the Autobots on how they came up with those names! Perhaps the name has more of a terrifying denotation in their native language, but something seemed to have been lost in translation.

It was fascinating to watch the Autobots as they went about their duties to get their ship – turned impromptu base- up and running; repairing bits of corridor, replacing broken panels and consuls, testing out everything. They appeared so alien-like yet so human, the young boy could not help but be fascinated. The Ark was a complex, highly advance piece of technology that boggled Spike's mind whenever he attempted to wrap his around the sheer improbability of it all. Everything seemed so intricate, so delicate; circuitry and the like ran through almost everything, the floors, the walls, everything. Had Spike not been seeing Mechs who most certainly weighed a good couple tons, walk on the flooring, he was certain he would be scared to do anything but tip-toe across the metal plating, all too aware of the delicate, and likely expensive as hell, circuitry underneath. Yet everything was guarded, reinforced, and covered to a degree virtually unknown and certainly unheard of to mankind. Even if he had a diamond crowbar, Spike didn't think he could do the ship any real damage; maybe a dent in the wall if he swung hard enough. But that was a big maybe.

Sitting on the ledge of one of the consuls, Spike allowed the scene before him unfold like some never ending television show. For the most part, what was once the bridge of the ship had become the main control room, the official room of business. It was here that Spike had the best vantage to observe Humanities newest allies and really it was one of only a few places where he could be out of way of large clambering feet. The Autobots were always outwardly careful whenever he was around, but in everyone's best interest Spike always took the liberty to find elevated seats to keep from getting caught underfoot. For the most part, the day was routine and uneventful and Mechs wandered through the control room, deaf and unaware to all except their work. He hadn't met all of the Autobots yet, or spoken to most, but they didn't seem to mind the young human watch them as they worked, though Spike did notice one of them kept glancing at him as if to see if he was still there. After a while it began to nag at the boy, wondering if maybe the Autobot was silently trying to tell him to scram, that he was annoying them. The last thing he needed was a pissed off robot. He was about to scoot off the edge and find some other room to observe when the door to the far right of the room opened and a Mech walked in, malice seeming to rise off his red armor plating like heat. When the Mech glanced towards Spike and then tromped forward with deliberate steps, Spike froze. In his mind, he wondered what he had done to anger anyone. He couldn't think of anything, perhaps he wasn't looking at Spike. Maybe it was one of the Mechs next to him or…

"You!" The Autobot said, pointing towards Spike and any hope of avoiding a confrontation was deflated. What had he done? As the Autobot approached, Spike shrank back, glancing pleadingly to the two Mechs who were working on the large computer only a little ways off, but they seemed just as confused as he and even a little curious. Spike belatedly realized that the Mech was a lot shorter then most of the Autobots and he had a similar shape to Bumblebee, but despite the similarity, the Mech's red armor and little horns made him look more like a (comparatively) little devil. The small Autobot impended over Spike, blue eyes aglow with fury. His hand shot forward and Spike clenched his eyes shut instinctually. When nothing happened, he opened his eyes warily and was greeted with a small slip of paper pinched between the Mech's large fingers.

Bemused, Spike glanced up at the angry 'Bot quizzically. When no explanation was forthcoming, Spike attentively reached out and took the little piece of paper, giving the Mech one more uncertain glance. Looking over the words on the paper, Spike clamped down on the sudden urge to giggle inappropriately. He bit his lip and looked up, noting the Autobot seemed to expect something from him.

"OK?" Spike asked, unable to completely mask his amusement.

"Explain this!" boomed the Autobot. If the situation hadn't gleaned the attention of the room before, it certainly did now. The perpetual sensation of diminutiveness suddenly multiplied as the Autobot practically_ loomed _over him. It was quite a disconcerting feeling, especially considering this was supposedly an ally.

"You're human, you should know!"

"I do know; It's a ticket," said Spike simply. What was there to explain?

"What is it for?!"

He blinked, confused. "..Says here you ran a red light…"

Logic told him that should have quelled the red Autobot, however it only seemed to create more ire. "So?" the 'Bot demanded.

Spike struggled to answer the question with any sort of dignity. "Well…..That's against the law."

"Says _who_?"

Spike regarded the Mech with an incredulous stare. Was he being serious? "Uh…The _Law_? The President, Congress…our entire judicial system? Everyone."

"Well how do you expect _us_ to know that?"

Spike blinked, unsure how to answer him. "Well…Everyone knows…it's just common knowledge."

"Everyone knows _what_?"

Spike allowed himself a small smile as he explained a concept he knew since he was in kindergarten. "…that red means stop." It was curious to see the Mech's face change from intensely furious to utterly confused in the span of a second. "That makes absolutely no sense. Red is a color, it doesn't mean anything."

It was Spike turn to look confused and even a little offended. "Of course it does. All colors have a meaning. Well, most do. It's psychological."

"How stupid!"

Spike was vaguely aware that there was now a small audience gathering around them, some of them looking rather amused. A tall green Mech walked up beside the smaller red one and placed a placating hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong, Cliffjumper."

The red mini-bot turned to the taller one. "I got pulled over by the human police today and the stupid fleshy gave me this thing!" he waved the itty-bitty slip of paper around like a piece if confetti. "A ticket! How stupid is that?"

"You ran a red light," Spike reminded him. "That's a big traffic no-no." Despite the probable imprudence of such an action, Spike wagged a finger at the Autobot as if gently scolding a toddler.

"What does it mean when you get a ticket?" The green Mech asked Spike before Cliffjumper could respond.

"Well…usually it means a fine. This is your first one so that's pretty much all it means, but if you're a repeat offender you could loose your license or get sent to jail. But if that ever happened to one of you guys I don't think they'd send you to jail….the impound lot maybe…"

"For not obeying a stupid light?" Cliffjumper demanded, furious again. "What's the point? Are they some religious relic or something? Is it some taboo to not respect the shiny lights? Have I offended your primitive culture?"

Spike rolled his eyes, trying not to feel offended. "No. They're _traffic_ lights. It helps regulate the flow of traffic at intersections to keep people from crashing into each other when they cross the road. When you ran a red light you broke the law. You could've caused a wreck and hurt someone."

Cliffjumper shook his head in exasperation and grumbled. "What a useless system. Using colors as traffic signals…"

"Works for us," remarked the human with equal grouchiness. As enthralling and as fascinating as these Autobots were, he had limits on how much insults on his people and culture he could take. "Red means stop, yellow means caution, green means go."

"Why? Why not _blue_ means stop and _red_ mean go? Or black means stop. That makes more sense then red."

"We wouldn't be able to see a black light very well. And…red is kind of…well, people see it as kind of an ominous color. It grabs people's attention."

"Cliffjumper being the exception, apparently," a dark blue and yellow Mech smirked from the group of spectators, a red chevron on his forehead. Spike had noticed several of the Autobots with a similar design. It made it kind of hard to remember their names.

"Ominous?" Cliffjumper asked dubiously. "How? Red is an Autobot color!" He pounded his fist against his chest with bravado. "The color of bravery and strength! It's a heroic color. What's so slagging ominous about the color red?"

Spike was silent for a moment as he analyzed his own perceptions of the color in question and why it always caught his attention. "…red's the color of human blood."

The group went silent as they absorbed the statement, understanding and confusion playing their minds at once.

"Usually when we see red the first thing we think of—well,_ I_ think of— is blood. And then other related images pop up. Like anger, death, murder, pain, torture, war…and so on," added Spike. "But it also has the same connotations like you said. There are some colors that have multiple meanings depending on the context."

"How so?" The green Mech—Hound, wasn't it?— asked. He, like several of the other Autobots, looked intrigued and Spike felt a bubble of jollity rise from the pit of his stomach. So far, his time around the Autobots was spent being virtually ignored by all save a few he'd made friends with, and his insides filled with the warm-fuzzies at the notion they were actually paying attention to him and even asking him things. His inner child squealed with joy.

"Well, let's take your color for instance- green. Usually we associate green with nature, for obvious reasons; it's the most abundant color in nature. From that association we get things like life, peace, freedom, and tranquility." The green Mech smiled at that. "But then green can also mean jealousy. There's a saying that describes someone as being 'green with envy'."

"How about yellow?" Asked Bumblebee, one of the few Mechs so far he had gotten to know fairly well. Spike had not seen him come in. Beside him stood a Mech he had been introduced to as Prowl and beside him was Optimus Prime. With such a prestigious audience hanging on his words, Spike began to feel a bit self conscious.

"Yellow? Oh, us, well in a traffic light it means caution and you're supposed to slow down… so when the light turns red you can stop." He paused and add, rather embarrassed, "But then again, most people speed up so they can dodge the red light, so I guess that one's a bit of a catch-22. But yellow can also mean happy, peaceful, and fun. It's considered a happy color."

Bumblebee smiled at that, but Spike was confused when around him, the Mechs began chuckling and murmur to each other. Spike caught a muttered 'oh the irony' and 'Someone go tell Sideswipe'. Spike hadn't met anyone named Sideswipe, or at least he didn't think he had. He turned to look at Bumblebee, tilting his head quizzically. The yellow minibot merely shook his head and waved the silent inquiry away, chuckling.

"I'll tell you later." He said.

"What about blue?" Someone asked to Spike's left, but he didn't see who.

"Blue? Ah, that's kind of a hard one. See, a light blue, like the sky, is considered a happy color. But a deep blue is more mellow and sad. We don't call certain styles of Jazz 'The Blues' for nothing. Blue can either mean really happy or really sad. One extreme to another depending on the shade or hue. But there's an old idiom that says someone who talks really fast without stopping is "Talk up a Blue streak" but I'm not sure how that relates to the actual color."

The room erupted in another bout of laughter and several Mech were shouting 'Ain't that true!' Spike made a mental note to ask Bumblebee about that as well.


	2. Chapter 2 part 1

Author's notes: Hello everyone! Thank you for all who reviewed, faved, and alerted this story! It seems I am in need of another Beta reader. I have one, but she's busy a lot and I'm in need of someone who can proof read grammar and spelling really quick and get a document back to me within the a day or close to one. Any help would be very much appriciated! Thanks and please enjoy.

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Chapter Two: The Hypo-critic Oath Part I 

"But if the coolant lines are supposed to go to this limb, wouldn't it have to feed through here?"

Spike looked up from homework towards where his Dad and Wheeljack were discussing Cybertronian anatomy. Despite his diligence in completing his assignments, it was difficult to keep his attention from wandering off. He was somewhat knowledgeable with cars and machinery and once in a while he would pick up familiar words and quite a few foreign ones.

What was a hydraulic flux dampener?

School had started a mere two weeks ago and already he was being virtually crushed beneath the amount of homework his teachers were giving him and his peers. So much work was drastically cutting into Spike's regular 'Hanging out with and/or watching giant robots' time. Luckily he only had one more page of chemistry equations to work through and he would be free to spend the afternoon as he saw fit.

_Mole conversions, you have met your match! _As the teen tackled the last few problems, Wheeljack and his father continued on with their lesson.

"No, no, no," said Wheeljack. "If we did that and he bent his arm, it would end up cutting right through the line, see? Which would be bad."

Pointing to something deep inside the armor plating of the injured Mech, the Autobot engineer dictated to the smaller humanoid life form perched upon the chest of the patient on the proper techniques and procedures of repairing such a deep wound. Their debatably lucky subject was a burly minibot named Brawn who lay motionless upon the examination table. While his body remained still, his face was contorted into a look of perpetual annoyance at his current occupation. His arm lay sprawled out away from the rest of his form, the top plating below the shoulder sporting a good sized hole where a Decepticon laser had caught him, severing a coolant and motor lines and making said appendage all but useless. Ratchet's Medbay was full of those worse off then Brawn so he had been sent to Wheeljack's lab for a quick repair. When Wheeljack saw the injury, he was struck with a brilliant idea that would potentially lead to shortening the quick repair to a simple quick fix! However, the quick fix was running much longer then intended as Brawn suddenly found himself an impromptu teaching aide. After all, Wheeljack had to make sure his new pupil knew what he was doing before he went spelunking into the body of a Mech.

Wheeljack bent over patient and helper while explaining how to go about feeding the new coolant line properly into the arm for adequate temperature control. Sparkplug looked down into the open wound and nodded, seeming to be enthralled at the opportunity to help repair an injured Mech.

"Alright, so then where does it go?"

"Right through there. That hole in the structural support way down there. Can you see it?"

"Oh, yeah I see it."

"That's the coolant line lead."

Sparkplug chuckled, glancing up at the large automation looming over him. "Now I get why you asked for my help. How do you guys get any repairs done if you can't reach everything?"

"Usually we have to remove the armor or sometimes disassemble the entire limb if we can't reach the site ourselves or we don't have the appropriate tools. Which, as you know, we do not; hence why I asked if you could lend me a hand."

"Well, it doesn't look too complicated," said Sparkplug as he rolled up his sleeves and (figuratively) dived in. From where he was seated, Spike saw Brawn's face contort into an expression that could only be described as controlled disgust. Not that he entirely blamed the 'Bot. Had he been in the Autobot's place, Spike was sure he would not have been any more comfortable with someone digging into him either. Still, he could not help but feel a little uncomfortable. A lot of Autobots still didn't seem to care much for humans, seeing them as weak squishy inferior creatures, and Brawn was one of them. Most Autobots were courteous, but there always seemed to be a perpetual sense of 'Go away pest' that Spike had noticed. Bumblebee thought he was being paranoid and for a while, Spike dropped the issue. But it always lurked in the back of his mind…

"Damn," was the muted curse from Sparkplug before he pulled back out of the injured site.

"What's wrong?" Wheeljack asked looming back over the table to peer down into the whole in Brawn's armor.

"I can't pull the line all the way through the support; my arm's not long enough," said the human, wiping his grease covered hands together. "I'd go in deeper, but…" he patted his middle and chuckled, "I ain't the same waist size I use to be. Don't wanna get stuck in there and cause an even bigger conundrum."

Brawn snorted, clearly none too enthusiastic about such an ordeal and quickly loosing patients with the current one. Wheeljack ignored his patient and straightened up to his full height. Tapping his face guard, Wheeljack hummed thoughtfully as he gazed down at Brawn in contemplation.

Sparkplug glanced over to his son and called out to him as an idea struck him. "Why don't you give it a try, Son?"

Startled from his observing stupor, Spike looked over to his father, "Huh?"

"See if you can pull this line through and connect it," Sparkplug waved him over as if there was a bridge between their respective tables and the boy could simply stroll across. In his mind, Spike could not help but think 'What? But he doesn't like me, he'll squish me!' Wheeljack turned to the teenager, seeming to have latched onto Sparkplug's idea. Stepping over to the table, the engineer offered him a hand up. Spike blinked up at the Mech before getting to his feet and climbing somewhat awkwardly onto Wheeljack's hand.

Cupping the boy in his hands, Wheeljack carefully transferred Spike over to the examination table and allowed him to slip off his palm and onto Brawn's chest next to his father. Perhaps it was his imagination, but Spike thought he felt a slight vibration, like a muted growl, run along Brawn's chassis. Spike glanced over his shoulder to look into the Mech's face with an expression that he hoped conveyed he was no less uncomfortable about digging around in his inner working either and that he was profusely sorry…and to please not kill him.

He turned back to hid Dad. He couldn't quite mask all the nervousness in his voice, "So what is it I'm doing?"

"Down there," Sparkplug replied, gesturing down into the gaping hole in Brawn's armor. "There's a coolant line that needs to be connected to that port, see it?"

Reluctantly, Spike bent down next to his Dad to have a look inside, ever aware that he was looking into and standing on a living being. There was little light to show where anything was, but Spike peered through the dimness and spotted the coolant line that lay partially pulled through a round hole in a support strut (something like the Cybertronian equivalent to bones) and up further was a round port like the end of a garden hose. Spike nodded. "Yeah, I see it."

"So do you think you can reach it?" Wheeljack asked.

"Uh…maybe," Spike replied, not being able to keep from peeking nervously at Brawn's face which seemed to become more irritated by the minute. Wheeljack caught the boy's nervous glance and laughed.

"Don't worry about Brawn," said the Mech, patting Brawn on the opposite shoulder. "He has no say in this."

"Hey!" The minibot growled, rising up a little and causing both humans to cry out and scramble for purchase on the shifting metal. "The frag I don't! It's my chassis you're scrambling around on and digging into my wires! Which by the way ain't the most pleasant of experiences!"

Wheeljack pushed Brawn back onto the table. "Stop moving. They're just trying to help. Would you rather have me disassemble your armor just to connect a single coolant line?"

"If you had, we'd be done by now. Instead of wasting my time with this slag. I ain't some _toy_ you can _tinker_ with!"

"Teaching the humans how to help repair us could save us time and resources in the future. As much of a challenge as it must be, please attempt a little patience, Brawn," Wheeljack replied. "Besides, they don't possess automatic memory storage circuits to accumulate all of this data. They have to learn it slowly so it's converted to long term memory and properly absorbed. If I told them everything straight off they wouldn't retain any of it and you'd be stuck here even longer."

Brawn clearly had more to say, but bit his tongue, or lack thereof, and settled down. If Spike was not uncomfortable before, he was now. He was willing to lend a hand if the Autobots needed it, but he was not too keen on making any enemies of giant robots…even mini giant robots. He did not like being places where he wasn't wanted and Brawn was practically fuming indignation.

"Go on son," his father prompted him, giving him a little nudge. "Give it a try."

Rallying himself, Spike got down on his knees and slowly lowered his upper body down into the wound. As he did so, he could hear Brawn's inner workings rev, the sound being much clearer without the thick armor to muffle it. It sounded much more aggressive from inside. The space inside Brawn's arm was heavily scented with metal, oil, and other fluids he wasn't familiar with and truly was not up to knowing. He could easily differentiate one particular smell he was beginning to become more and more familiar with the longer he spent time around the Autobots; Energon. It had a sharp bite to it that made his sinuses sting and it was very potent, especially when it was fresh. He tried to breathe evenly between his mouth and nose to keep from being too effected by it. It made his head hurt after a while.

Ignoring the offending smells for a moment, Spike reached down and grabbed the coolant line and maneuvered himself deeper to align the end with the port. The cramp quarters made it difficult and with a burst of will, fueled mostly by the desire to get it done and over with, Spike pushed the line into the port till he heard a clean snap indicating the two ends had connected. "Got it," He said.

Glad to be done with it, Spike was about to pull himself out of Brawns arm when an angry voice unexpectedly rattled the air. "What the _frag_ do you think you're doing!?"

Startled by the sudden noise, Spike jerked up and smashed his head against the top of the armor. "_Ah_!"

Spike bit his lip to keep several choice phrases behind his teeth. What little light he had to see by abruptly cut off and before he knew it, he was being pulled from hole and into the well lit space of Wheeljack's lab. When he looked over his shoulder to face whoever had grabbed a hold of him, he felt his stomach bottom out. The resident medic was _glaring _at him, his normally happy blue optics now pale and ablaze with fury at the scene he had come across. If his expression alone was anything to go by…

…Ratchet was _pissed_.

The medic's fury concentrated only briefly at Spike before rearing up at Wheeljack who took a tentative step back. "They were just helping me," the Autobot offered in meager defense.

"Have your logic circuits overheated and melted your common sense relays?" Ratchet demanded hotly, "Do you have any idea how many _hazards_ there are in the Cybertronian body that could_ kill_ them?"

Ratchet sat Spike down atop the table with a surprising care, a stark contrast his blatant rage that was currently focused on Wheeljack. Once free, Spike scampered over to his Dad in fear of any wayward ire being directed at him.

Wheeljack knew of the dangers certainly, but apparently he felt well equipped to deal with any accidents should they occur. Ratchet obviously did not share in his confidence.

"I made sure they knew what they were doing and what not to…" Wheeljack was cut off by a wayward tool making contact with his head with a loud _clang!_ "—_Ah_!"

"Not only that, but they aren't even wearing any protective clothing! Do you know what unprocessed Energon does to organic matter?" Spike and his Father were both frozen upon the table, too stunned to move. They had seen grumpy Ratchet before and even heard him yelling from across the Ark and they certainly had been told the _stories_…but never had they witness a Ratchet tirade in person. It was far more thunderous then Spike would have guessed. Even Brawn looked nervous and was discretely inching away from Ratchet's side of the table. And Ratchet, being one of the shorter models, taller then a minibot but shorter then the standard model, carried himself in such a way that made his height severely inconsequential.

Ratchet turned his ire back towards the human pair and fixed them with a glare. "Next time he or _anyone_ tries to convince either of you to crawl into a Mech, don't. And if I find out you did anyway, I'll…I'll…" Ratchet fumbled on an appropriate ending, appeared unprepared with human compatible threats. "…do something really not nice. Got it?"

Spike nodded vigorously, but his father looked less convinced. He nodded anyway, "Whatever you say Ratchet."

That seemed to appease the medic somewhat. "Good."

And that should have been the end of it. But as Spike learned later on with more dealings with the Cybertronian race, it was rarely the end of it. A few days later, Spike came upon his father in a rather curious situation.

"Dad…?"

"Yes, son?"

"…I thought we weren't supposed to help with repairs anymore…"

"The Good Doctor only said no more repairing Autobots; he didn't say anything about equipment," Sparkplug pulled himself out from under the large computer, wiping away sweat and dirt from his face with a dingy rag. The room was a small communications alcove that branched off from the hall near the main control room. The room was comparatively small to the Autobots, like a closet or a phone booth, but was a sizeable space for the two humans who were the only ones currently within. Sparkplug looked up at his son from where he lay on the floor, a faint smile on his face. "Wheeljack needed some help setting up the new control monitoring modules in all the computers. What Ratchet don't know can't hurt him. Or us. Besides, he's up to his optics in repairs right now and any potential squealers are limbless or knocked out cold in the Medbay."

"Dad, that's kind of…sick."

"Doesn't make it any less true. Ratchet won't find out. At least for a while."

Spike looked around him as if the mere mentioning of the irreverent medic's name would summon him and subsequently bring all unholy fury raining down upon them. All those horror stories Sideswipe would tell about Ratchet…maybe it was starting to get to him. He would rather not validate their authenticity. "Yeah, but…"

"_You_ aren't gonna tattle on me are you, boy?" His father smirked as his son stumbled awkwardly over his reply.

"Wha-? No! No….no I'm not, I wouldn't do that! But you shouldn't be…you know, doing that after what he said. Ratchet's not the kind of guy to forgive and forget. Sideswipe was saying he holds a grudge like no one else!" said Spike. "And these guys live for a really long time. And a bunch of these guys already think I'm a nuisance and I'd really not care for having a crazy medic pissed at me too."

"Stop listening to that red lunatic. He's just messing with you," Sparkplug chuckled at him. "You're too gullible."

"Maybe, but…"

"You worry too much," said his father as he slipped back under the computer to finish up whatever it was he was doing. "Besides, you're not doing anything wrong. If he gets fritz, it'll be at me. Go and find Bumblebee if you're so worried about it. I need to finish this connection before the monitoring system can go live and Red Alert can't stop crying wolf whenever a fly gets in without his notice. I dunno about you son, but I intend to be at least somewhat useful around here."

When most individuals have an epiphany or sudden realization, there was usually a profound silence, but Spike simply stood there blinking stupidly. It took a moment for it to sink in. Sparkplug looked over when something slid under the consol beside him and he was pleased to see Spike. "Alright," the boy said with a nervous smile. "What do I need to do?"

His father smiled and handed him a wrench. "That's my boy."

It was a very natural thing to become engrossed in one's work and Spike found himself actually enjoying the task once the thought of repercussions left his cognitive thoughts. In fact, there was something fundamentally invigorating about tinkering with alien technology as well a sense of blatant impishness about doing it all behind the resident Medic's back. As advanced and technical as the Autobot technology was, it was not too far a leap in common sense to be able to repair simple connections and wires. Had either of them needed to reprogram something or perhaps replace a motherboard that would have been a tad bit different of a situation. However, for two grease monkeys, their task was surprisingly simple and took little to no time at all for them to finish and move on to the next one which Wheeljack, pleased at their speed and skill, readily gave them. It did not take long at all before all the modules were set up and the new monitor program went live.

Ratchet finished his repairs and no one was any wiser save for a cheeky engineer and a pair of humans, all three of which were smart enough to keep their mouths and vocalizers shut.

"What are you doing Spike?"

The unexpected intrusion of the voice broke Spike violently from the isolated trance one often experienced when engrossed in a book. With the start, the boy tore his eyes from the pages and looked up to see Bumblebee smiling down at him. The warm afternoon sun beat down upon the Oregon desert, shimmering off the golden sand and Spike squinted a little against the rays of light that bounced off the yellow minibot's armor.

"Oh. Hi, Bumblebee. What's up?"

The minibot carefully negotiated himself down into a seated position next to Spike, allowing his feet to dangle off the edge of the rock outcropping where the young human had sought refuge. Transformers in general were not designed to sit in the same fashion as humans, at least not comfortably so, and such physical limitations forced many an Autobot to find alternatives sitting positions then those of the human sort and especially when there were no accommodations to suit them. While Spike could cross his legs Indian style or sit on his knees (which many Autobots figured must be rather painful), Bumblebee had to find a more adequate position to accommodate his frame. It was a lucky happenstance that Spike had chosen a spot with a edge for his to sit upon.

Once comfortable, Bumblebee turned back to his smaller companion with a smile. "What are you doing out here? I figured you'd be inside driving folks nuts with more questions."

Spike felt a bit of uneasiness in the pit of his stomach and he dropped his gaze. "I don't mean to be a pest to anyone…"

Bumblebee just laughed and patted the boy on the back good naturedly. "You can't expect them to really be _all_ that welcoming just yet. Most of them are still kind of working through everything."

Spike looked at Bumblebee with confusion. "What do you mean?"

"Well," said Bumblebee began hesitantly as if he was not all too certain he should burden the boy with their troubles. "It's just that lots of us are feeling a bit…home sick, I guess you would call it. We don't even know if Cybertron still exists. The war could be over. We might be all that's left of our kind for all we know. Lots of the guys are just trying to keep their transistors cool so a lot of them might be a little short with you."

Spike nodded slowly, feeling like a jerk for not even realizing. "That makes sense."

The yellow Autobot echoed the nod. "Yep, so give them a little time to adjust and they'll be drinking high grade and breaking things before you know it. At least the Decepticons keep us busy for a while. All things considered, I'd say we've actually behaved fairly well." He the spotted the book in the young human's lap and gestured to it vaguely. "So what about you? What're you reading?"

Spike froze and he slowly closed the book, hoping his friend wouldn't be too curious as to what it pertained. "Oh, uh…you know. Stuff."

Bumblebee gave Spike an odd look at the defensive response. "Like what?"

"Just…stuff. Human stuff…nothing important," Spike slid the book off his lap and tucked it under his thigh, out of sight. "Nothing you'd be interested in."

Curiosity piqued, Bumblebee tilted his head at the boy, amused but unconvinced. Spike was very bad at lying. "Really now?"

"Yeah."

Bumblebee leaned forward, a mischievous glint in his optic that made Spike nervous. "Nothing interesting?"

"Nope."

"Nothing important?"

Spike leaned away from the yellow minibot. He shook his head, the faux smile on his face wavering. "Nuh-uh."

"Well then…" Abruptly, Bumblebee reached out and grabbed the boy around the waist. "…where's the harm in me seeing it?" The Autobot hoisted the boy up in the air and retrieved the book with his free hand.

"Hey-! Bumblebee, no!" Spike grabbed onto Bumblebee's wrist as if afraid he would fall from his grip. Bumblebee sat Spike on his lap, holding him with one arm while he looked at the book.

"Advanced mechanics?" Bumblebee asked, surprised and more then a little dubious. Spike wiggled in his friend's arm, trying to reach for the book and hide it as if it were some taboo object not decent for public view.

"Bumblebee, give it back!" Spike ineffectively tried to reach for it again, but Bumblebee just chuckled and rearranged the boy into the crook of his elbow, well out of range to retrieve the book.

"What're you learning mechanics for?" Bumblebee asked, fingering through a few pages. What the book labeled as 'advanced' Bumblebee, and most of Cybertronian society, considered basic and common knowledge. He had to restrain himself from snickering inappropriately less he offend his human companion. He was just a boy after all.

"It's nothing, now give it back," grunted the human, still trying to free himself. "And let me go!"

Bumblebee released his grip and Spike scrambled to his feet, straightening his shirt.

"So what's this for?" Bumblebee asked as he handed the book over which Spike took readily and stuffed it under his arm.

"Nothing. Just curiosity," Spike replied, his face flushed. "My Dad's a mechanic remember? I'm just doing some research."

"Oh." Bumblebee nodded. "But why?"

Looking positively shame faced, Spike kicked a few rocks around, debating his words and just how much to tell, if any, of his secrets to his friend.

"C'mon Spike," Bumblebee rested a gentle hand on the boy's shoulder, which due to its comparative size covered most of his upper arm as well. "I'm your friend. You can tell me."

Spike bit his lip and took a refueling breath. "Wheeljack's teaching me and Dad how to help with repairs on you guys even though Ratchet said not to under threat of extreme pain and torture. So it's all a big secret and no one's supposed to know." Spike pulled the book from under his arm and held it up. "He told me to read this to get familiar with the basics."

"So," Asked Bumblebee, leaning on one arm and smirking. "Why so glum about it? Don't you want to?"

"Well, yeah!" Spike replied as if it should have been obvious. "It's just…"

Spike sighed in frustration holding the book out in front of him and glaring at it. "No matter how many times I read this, it's like nothing's sticking! I'm not a learn-from-a-book kinda guy. It's easier for me to learn by example. But Wheeljack doesn't want to get into actual demonstrations yet. He's still trying to figure out how to do it without attracting any attention." There was a momentary pause and Spike looked up into Bumblebee's face. "And I'm freaked out that Ratchet will kill us all if he finds out."

The sheer frankness of Spike words caused Bumblebee to laugh. Spike frowned; taking his friend's amusement as a sign of belittlement in regards to his situation which he found far from humorous. "_Bumblebee…_"

The Autobot placed his hand on his abdomen as he got his chortles under control. "I'm sorry, buddy. I guess to a newbie Ratchet can seem pretty intimidating."

"…newbie?"

"You haven't known him long enough, that's all," said Bumblebee. "He acts that way, but only because he's looking out for you the best way he knows how."

"Yelling and physically threatening people?"

"Yep."

Spike was silent as he tried to absorb that. "…sorry if my puny human mind does not comprehend your superior alien robotic logic."

Bumblebee gave the boy a look. "Now don't go saying stuff like that. You're just not thinking about it in the right terms," he said, tapping a metal finger onto the boy's scalp. "Ratchet's been patching our afts up for millennia now. Probably longer then the Earth's existed, in fact. And the more you get to know these guys you'll see why Ratchet's temper's a few meters short of a mile."

Spike pondered that for a moment, rubbing the top of his head. "So…he's just tired of fixing you guys all the time?"

"In a sense. He's has this idea that if you've been injured in anyway it must have been a result of your own stupidity and shortcomings and therefore you're deliberately wasting his time and resources."

"…but you're not."

"Not always, no."

"Wait—not always? What do you mean 'not always'? You mean sometimes you are?"

"Well, take Sideswipe for instance: He like pushing people's buttons. Especially Ratchet's. So he's intentionally reckless in the field just so he can annoy the good doctor."

"That's insane."

"That's Sideswipe," replied Bumblebee frankly. "You'll learn in time."

"So then…he's just in a perpetual state of annoyance?"

"Pretty much."

"…so he wouldn't really kill me?"

"No, of course not."

Spike felt a swell of relief…

"He might lock you in a storage closet or make you clean the floors with a pipe cleaner or something like that, though."

…and then it was gone. "_What_?"

"Well, you're human. So he'd have to be pretty careful so he didn't maim you or something. He never does anything permanent. He can ding _us_ up all he wants, we're easily fixed. But you? Not so much." Bumblebee couldn't help but smile at the look of abject horror upon the young man's face. "But Ratchet's always been pretty creative when it comes to alternative punishments. He made Bluestreak replace every light fixture on base once when he got his arm shot off in the field."

"…somehow that doesn't put me at ease."

Bumblebee smiled at the young man and reached for the book again, plucking it from his hands. Spike didn't protest this time as Bumblebee carefully ruffled through the pages. "It doesn't look all that hard. What do you need help with?"

"Well…it's hard for me to learn from pictures alone, that's all."

"Well then, why not let me show you?" With that, Bumblebee reached over and opened a panel on his forearm. Spike's eyes widened at the sight of the circuitry and various lines and mechanics and hydraulics within the limb. "I could show you. Be your example."

Spike was speechless for a moment.

"You'd let me tinker around with your parts?" Spike asked, dubious and with a fair amount of anxiety. "Aren't you afraid I'll mess you up or something?"

The yellow Autobot burst out into laughter. "I doubt you could do much harm without a blowtorch or something like that. Seekers have tried and failed to bring me down," Bumblebee replied with a smirk. "And, no offense buddy, but you ain't no Seeker."

"None taken," Spike replied with a smile and a shrug.

"Alright, so let's start with the basics," Bumblebee began as he handed Spike the book and began to recite the fundamental rules and laws of mechanics.

As Spike had said, he worked and learned much faster when he had something he could touch and look at, something tangible. The awkwardness of the situation was brief and soon Spike became enthralled once more in the activity. But all too soon the sun began to set and the two were forced to return indoors. Neither spoke a word about the lesson and Spike returned to Wheeljack much more mechanically savvy then before, much to the engineer's delight. He assigned him another book. And when he found himself stuck on something, he went and sought Bumblebee's presence. It wasn't long at all before Wheeljack announced it was time to start the hands on process and gave then an old hydraulic flux dampener to restore.

And that should have been the end of it. But as Spike was beginning to learn along with his many dealings with the Cybertronian race, it was rarely the end of it.

* * *

Author's notes #2: Yes, this is a two parter. It wasn't intended to be so long, but well it turned out that way. Second part on its way soon. Stay tuned.


	3. Chapter 2 part 2

Author's notes: Thank you for all the favs and reviews guys! Much love. Here is part two of Chapter two. Please read, review, and enjoy. =D

* * *

The Hypo-critic Oath Part II

It was a few weeks later that Bumblebee came back from patrol, dinged and dented from helm to bumper with more than a fair share of scratches from where the pavement had given him a few lovely kisses. Spike had been in the hall, making his way to the control room in hopes of finding his Dad so they could work on the flux dampener together, but stopped frozen in that hall when the yellow bug came limping down his way. Ironhide was next to him, helping the scout along with a guiding hand on one dented shoulder.

For a few moments Spike simply stood there, his stomach having bottomed out at the sight. He had seen worse injuries on some of the Autobots, certainly, but never had it been an Autobot Spike had been anywhere close to. Not like Bumblebee. The sight conjured up memories he would rather not recall. With a shake of his head to clear his mind, Spike ran forward to meet them.

"Bee!" he said, pausing in front of them. "Are you alright? What happened?"

"Don't get all excited, kid," Ironhide said with a frown.

"I'm fine," said Bumblebee. "Skywarp and I just had… a nice chat."

Spike blinked. "Oh. But you're alright?"

"Me? Sure. This is nothing," Bumblebee said, waving the comment off. "A couple dents to bang out and a new paint job. Nothing to worry about. I've had much much worse." Bumblebee then leaned down towards the human and smirked. "I told you; Seekers have tried and failed to bring me down."

Spike was about to reply when a familiar scent struck his nose; a strong pungent smell that made his sinuses cringe. Energon, fresh Energon. As he was about to mention it, the two carried onwards towards the Medbay and Spike scrambled to get out of their way. He watched them march down the hallway and after a moment's pause, he ran after them. If they noticed him following, neither Mech made any motion to stop him or to tell him to bugger off.

As they neared their destination, the Medbay doors opened up and Ratchet stepped out to meet them, not looking too pleased at all. The medic regarded both Bumblebee and Ironhide with an annoyed glare and pitched his head to the side, directing them into the room. "Third table to the right," he scowled, mouth pinched into a frown. "And don't move a servo or I'll redirect your vocalizer through your exhaust port."

"Whatever you say Ratchet." The pair walked past him and just as Ratchet was about to follow them in, he happened to looked down and spotted Spike standing there. The medic's frown deepened.

"What do you want, scraplet?" He growled. The young man looked anxiously between Ratchet and Bumblebee as if silently pleading for permission to enter as well. After a moment, Ratchet growled to himself and pitched his head. "Go on," he grumbled and Spike rushed inside with Ratchet behind him. "Just stay out of the way or you'll get stepped on."

"Yes sir," Spike replied and made his way over to a vacant table and stood beneath it.

Bumblebee laid himself down on an examination table with Ironhide's help, one of many that lined both walls of the main bay. Further back were a series of doors that lead into private rooms for patients whose repairs took longer than usual and required temporary housing until they were released from Ratchet's tender loving care. Then there was a supply closet and another door which Spike was ignorant of its use. In the far right corner was a cubical like office with a single wide window looking out into the bay like a guard shack; Ratchet's office.

As Bumblebee settled down, Ratchet walked up beside the berth, pulling along a trolley laden with his tools of preference. Ironhide, having delivered his ward safely, took his leave.

"I'll be expecting a full report when your finished," the red Autobot told Bumblebee as he neared the door. "And Prime wants a debriefing as well. Prowl's probably gonna call a meeting."

"Will do," Bumblebee replied sounding far more chipper than one would expect from a person in such shape. Ratchet seemed to have had the same thought for his scowl deepened at the merriness in his patient's voice.

As instructed, Spike remained out of the way. Beneath the concern for his friend, Spike felt a growing sense of anxiousness. He had a growing desire to see what Ratchet was doing, to see a trained medic in the process of repair. He had witness it before, several times in fact, but now that he actually had some knowledge of Cybertronian anatomy and system functions, he found himself aching to see.

Seven minutes into the procedure and Ratchet turned to Spike and glowered, "Child, if you don't stop that infernal tapping, I'll throw you out!"

The sudden outburst surprised Spike and he planted the soles of his feet firmly on the ground, having not cognitively realized he had been tapping them against the floor in his angst. "Sorry," he muttered and shrunk back further under the table. A low rumble emanated from inside Ratchet's chest and he strode over to the table where Spike had taken refuge. Without a word, the medic reached out and grabbed Spike around the middle hoisting him up and then walking back over towards his work station. Setting the boy down on the table beside the one Bumblebee was currently occupying, Ratchet glared at him. "Frag it to the pit if I'll have you scampering around where I can't see you. Just sit still and don't make a sound. Got it?"

Spike nodded fervently. "Yes sir."

Pleased, but no less annoyed, Ratchet returned to his work. The reproof had been a blessing in disguise as now Spike had the perfect vantage point in which to observe the repairs. He felt a leap of pride when he realized not only did he recognize what Ratchet was doing as he removed armor panels to inspect and repair anything underneath, but he could guess what would be repaired next. The procedure in its entirety took little over an hour and once Bumblebee's armor had been reset, he was free to go.

He and Spike started down the hall.

"I have to go fill out my report," Bumblebee said. "But I was thinking we could go for another lesson if you're up for it."

Spike beamed. "Sure."

"Could you follow anything Ratchet did?"

"From what I saw at the end, yeah. Most of it anyway. I don't think I could replicate it though."

Bumblebee shrugged. "You will in time."

"If Ratchet doesn't find out."

"He'll warm up to the idea eventually. When he's up to his optics in wounded Mechs, he might change his mind. That's why he taught Wheeljack. He didn't want to at first because Wheeljack has a tendency to cause catastrophic failures."

"…What kind of catastrophic failures?"

Bumblebee raised his hands and spread his fingers, "Boom."

Spike snickered. "Oh."

He followed Bumblebee to his quarters, a relatively small space with a single berth for recharging and a small computer terminal. Bumblebee marched inside and sat at the terminal and began to write up his report. Spike clambered onto the berth and walked back and forth along the edge.

"Wheeljack gave Dad and me a project," Spike said in an attempt to fill the empty air with casual conversation. "An old flux dampener he wants us to restore."

Bumblebee paused in his typing to send a confused look his way. "…that's a bit… extreme of a project. Wouldn't you need some sort of protection? Like a lead wall?"

Spike smiled. "It's hydraulic."

"Ok. That's better," Bumblebee replied and returned to his task. He chuckled. "I was gonna say; Wheeljack must've finally lost it if he gave you two an atomic flux dampener to start with."

"Why? What's wrong with it?"

"Well, it's my understanding that certain amounts of exposure to particular wave lengths of light can cause cell mutation in organics," Bumblebee replied. "Which would be very bad."

Spike just blinked. "What? Like a sun burn?"

"Radiation. Cancer."

Spike's eyes widened. "Oh… shit."

"Exactly," said the Autobot. "So maybe we'll wait for that kind of repair until you have a radiation proof suit or something along those lines."

"Or we could just leave that stuff up to you guys."

"That would work too." Just then, Bumblebee placed a hand his helm and his body swayed every so slightly before righting itself. Spike looked at his friend.

"You OK?" asked the boy.

Bumblebee shook his head as if to clear his mind and tuned to address Spike. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just…my energy levels just dropped all a sudden."

"Well, when was the last time you refueled?" Spike asked.

"Before I went out on patrol, but I don't…" Bumblebee never finished the sentence as his optics went dark and his form went limp before falling back out of his chair to crash on the ground.

"_Bumblebee!_" Spike leapt from the berth and onto the floor before scrambling over to his fallen friend. Climbing up onto the yellow metal, Spike called out to him again. "Bumblebee! Bumblebee, what's wrong? Wake up! _Bumblebee!_"

There was no answer. Spike turned to leap off and run for help, but paused as a sickening smell filled his sinuses and he automatically went to cover his nose. The smell of Energon was very strong. Armed with nothing but a hunch and adrenaline, Spike crawled down to Bumblebee's midsection and grabbed onto the edge of his chest metal and pulled. At first it refused to give and the metal edged dug into his palms painfully. Another fervent tug and the metal door popped open to reveal the inner working of the Autobot. Nothing immediately seemed amiss until a wave of Energon wafted over him. He could already feel a headache coming on, but he ignored it. Ever so carefully, Spike crawled over the exposed chest, oil and grim staining his pants and hands, all the while carefully sniffing and looking for where the scent was strongest. As he climbed further up the scent grew more saturated until he paused over an orb like structure from where several major cables sprouted; his spark chamber. Looking around at all the connections, feeds, and lines, Spike could figure out where the smell was coming from. He bent low near the chamber and began looking around its edges, down past it and further into the Autobot's body. The smell was overwhelming now, he knew he was close. He reached down into the dark crevasse and cried out when he felt burning hot liquid engulf his hand and drip down his arm, it felt like fire. He pulled his hand out to see pink liquid drip off his finger tips which were already red and blistering as well as a line down his forearm in the same manner. He flicked his hand in an attempt to clear off the burning fluid and bit back tears.

Well… at least he had found it.

Without another word, Spike hoped off Bumblebee's chest and made a mad dash for the door which opened politely for him. He rushed down the hall ways as fast as he could, nearly tripping in his haste. When he approached the corner, his sneakers lost traction and slipped on the metal, sending him spiraling across the floor and into the opposite wall. Spike took a moment to nurse his shin, sucking air across his teeth. The radiating pain from his hand was increasing.

"Spike?"

He looked up, startled, to see Optimus Prime standing there.

" Prime!" Spike called, scrambling to his feet and ran over to the Autobot commander. The larger being dropped down onto one knee as the boy came up to meet him.

"What's wrong?" He asked, voice filled with concerned for the odd condition which the boy appeared to be.

"Bumblebee needs help," Spike told him breathlessly. "He just collapsed and he's not answering me!"

Despite his lack of facial features, Optimus' expression turned positively grim and he rose to his feet, striding over Spike and towards Bumblebee's quarters. "Inform Ratchet of the situation and tell him to meet me there," he called as he turned the corner.

"Yes sir!" Needing no more persuasions, Spike hurried on down the hall towards the Medbay. He was breathing hard when he reached the large set of double doors which opened for his after a moment of his banging on them. He ran inside, but did not see Ratchet at first.

"Ratchet!" Spike yelled.

"What do you want?" Grouched the familiar voice, but from behind him. Spike whirled around faster than his tired legs could move and he fell back onto his behind. He looked up to see Ratchet in the corner, rummaging through a box of something on the shelve lining the wall there.

"Bumblebee collapsed and he isn't answering me when I call him," Spike explained with little control, picking himself up. "Something's wrong with his Spark chamber I think. It's leaking Energon or something!"

Ratchet's face shifted from annoyed to furious in the span of a second. Without a word he was running for the door, leaving Spike, tired and sore, to totter along behind at his own inadequate pace. When Spike finally arrived at Bumblebee's room, both Optimus and Ratchet were leaning over the still form. Ratchet's hands were flying furiously across the open chest, digging into spaces and checking things. Spike hovered near the doorway to be out of the way.

Ratchet was muttering and cursing. "I don't understand it…he's in forced stasis but his systems aren't responding to my override codes… there's some sort of interference…"

"What does that mean?" Spiked asked worriedly from the doorway.

Ratchet glanced briefly his way before returning his full attention to his patient. "It means for whatever reason, his Spark isn't communicating with his body. I think his motherboard might have crashed…"

"Is that bad?"

"Yes it's bad! Very bad, not stop asking questions and let me do my job!" The ferocity of the remark surprised Spike and he had the definite feeling he wasn't welcome in the area at that moment. Ratchet continued to mutter hotly to himself. "Fragging, worthless piece of scrap…why won't you respond?"

Spike looked down at his burned hand. "What about an Energon leak?"

"Didn't I just tell you to stop asking me erroneous questions?" Ratchet barked, not even granting him a glance. " Prime, help me get this slagger to the Medbay. I can't do anything in here."

Optimus nodded once and daftly went to pick the smaller, docile form into his large arms.

"It's not erroneous!" Spike protested, but he was ignored. Both Mechs then rushed out the door and into the hall towards the Medbay. Spike, despite his growing collection of bruises and fatigue, ran after them. When he finally caught up with them, he was out of breath. They had laid Bumblebee upon a table and Optimus stood by as Ratchet whirled around in a fervor gathering tools and jumping into his work with reckless abandon.

"It's not erroneous!" Spike repeated himself as it was obvious he had not been heard, or paid attention to, the first time. "I think his…"

"Spike! If I hear your voice one more time I'm going to weld your mandible orifice shut!"

Perhaps it was because a dear friend's life was in danger or because Spike finally grew a backbone, but at that moment he realized something extraordinary; he was not afraid of Ratchet. With a gust of bravado, Spike ran over to the table and stood a little ways from the medic's feet. He looked up and squared his shoulders. "No!"

Ratchet paused in his work to look down at the boy, optics narrowed to thin slits and ire rising off his shoulders like waves of heat. "No?" He asked slowly as if warning boy he was trudging into dangerous territory. Spike stared back, unafraid and unintimidated. Ratchet's scowl deepened. " Prime… request permission to permanently weld this boy's mouth shut!"

"Denied," Optimus sighed and rounded the table. He bent down next to Spike, reaching a hand out and placing it placating against the boy's back. "Spike, perhaps it is best if you go find your father and wait. We will come get you when…"

"No!" Spike repeated, stepping away from Prime. "Bumblebee's Spark chamber's flooded with Energon. He had a leak somewhere in the main cavity, the auxiliary line I think. The one that lines the left side of the cortex. If his system's not responding to override codes that means his Processor must not be accessible somehow. His Spark isn't sending information to his body! Like he's in a coma!"

Optimus was speechless and Ratchet's face seemed to spasm, filtering several emotions at once as Spike's words settled. "…if there was a leak that massive my scans would have detected it."

Spike raised his hand, showing off the somewhat impressive burns. "So what's this?" Ratchet visibly twitched upon seeing them, but didn't reply. Spike went on, "There's Energon in his Spark chamber."

Half expecting to be bombarded with accusations on how he would know any of that and how he got the burns, Ratchet returned to his work and did not speak to either Optimus nor Spike for several long minutes. Then abruptly, he forced the two of them out of the room with a snarl. "I'll call when I'm done! Now get out of my sight!"

Optimus kindly dropped Spike off at the Rec room before heading onward to seek out Prowl. Spike entered the room, Bumblebee's condition weighing heavily on his mind more so than the pain of burned hand. Upon the doors opening, Spike was bombarded with the loud clamorous sounds of a rambunctious crowd of Autobots. The various tables were occupied with laughing Mechs, Energon cubes in hand. A good many of them looked drunk, if that was even a physical probability. Wheeljack had mentioned they experienced something called n overcharge, but Spike assumed that was more like getting high rather than drunk. Perhaps he was simply thinking to literally. Or perhaps just thinking too much…

Regardless, his entrance seemed widely unnoticed save by a few who waved or motioned to him cheerfully. Sparkplug and Hound were seated at a table along with Jazz and Wheeljack. When he saw his son, Sparkplug waved to him. "Spike! Where've you been boy?"

"Yeah," added Jazz. "You're missing all the fun, kiddo."

Spike made his way to the table, careful of anyone who might not be paying attention and not realize he was there. Hound gave the boy a hand up on the table. "Spike?" The Mech asked as allowed him to slide of his hand and onto the table top.

"Hm?"

"What happened to your hand?" Spike looked down at the burns, realizing belatedly that they were actually quite painful. Sparkplug saw them and like any parent, began to overreact.

"Jesus, son!" Sparkplug took his son's arm in his hand and began to examine the burns. Spike didn't protest. "What did you do? Stick your hand in boiling water?"

Spike found the grace to look guilty. "Not exactly…"

His father looked at him. "What then?"

The boy hesitated. "Energon…" he said.

"What?" demanded the other is disbelief that his son could have done something so stupid.

"It wasn't on purpose," Spike was quick to elaborate and then explained the incident in Bumblebee's room and then how Ratchet had thrown both he and Optimus out of the Medbay to work in peace. Spike turned to Wheeljack. "So, uh… Ratchet might know what we've been doing. Or have a good idea."

Seeming to tire from the mere thought of the hell-storm that was sure to come, Wheeljack sighed. "Well, can't say I expected it to be a secret forever. Especially if you two were ever gonna actually help with repairs."

Jazz looked up from his cube. "What's this about repairs?" he asked, leaning onto the table with a glint of curiosity in his optic.

Wheeljack shrugged, "I've been teaching 'em basic Cybertronian anatomy and mechanics so they could help us with repairs. We're short of hands as far as able medics go. Ratchet's the only Mech onboard with actual medical programming," said Wheeljack. "I thought if we trained these two a bit we could save time and resources. Their small stature enables them to reach places that for a Mech would take an inch from complete disassembly to reach."

"Bumblebee's been helping, too." Spike added.

"And I take it Ratchet didn't approve of these lessons?" Hound asked, taking a sip of Energon from the cube in his hand.

The engineer crossed his arms and sat back in his chair, looking disappointed. "No, he wasn't too thrilled with the prospect. I think he's just being a bit too overprotective, is all. We tend to underestimate Humans," he said. "They're more resilient than we give them credit for."

"Damn Skippy," Sparkplug piped in, still inspecting Spike's arms where the skin had blistered. Wheeljack's optics glowed warmly, squinting slightly in amusement.

Jazz chuckled. "Well, it's not like Ratchet doesn't have a point, though. You little guys may be tougher than ya look, but you're still pretty fragile."

Sparkplug's frowned, not paying attention to what was being said to either him nor Spike.

"You might have to go to the Hospital, son," Sparkplug told him.

Spike balked, sudden anxiety stirring in his gut. "What? Why?"

"This is pretty bad," The elder Witwicky pinned his son with a stern look. "Few of the blisters are broken and you're starting to swell. Doesn't it hurt?"

"Only a little…" Spike lied. Without comment, Sparkplug probed the blistered flesh with a finger and watched as his son sucked air across his teeth and recoiled, pulling his injured hand away and muttering a few choice phrases.

Unamused by the boy's misplaced courage, Sparkplug grabbed Spike's shoulder and looked squarely in his eyes. "You're going to a doctor."

Spike wilted. "Yes sir."

* * *

A trip to the local free clinic and several hours later, Spike was ushered into an examination room where a doctor jovially announced that the boy was the proud owner of second degree burns. The process for dressing such burns turned out to be a very unpleasant experience; more disturbing than painful. After thoroughly irrigating the burns to wash away any residual chemical, Spike was injected with some painkiller with a wordy name to numb the pain. Then the doctor proceeded to scrape the dead skin from Spike's hand and forearm with a horribly stiff brush and an odd green goop with tiny white shards of something that looks conspicuously like glass. There was no pain, but the sound of skin being scrapped away was enough to make the boy cringe and he was very much aware that he would likely be in serious discomfort the next day. Once all that was done, the doctor wrapped the boy's hand and arm with gauze and sent him home with a prescription for a mild sedative for the pain which was to be taken once a day with food.

Hound drove them back to the Ark while Spike told him what had happened in the clinic.

"And he gave me drugs," spike said with a cheeky grin. Beside him, his father rolled his eyes.

"What for?" Asked the green jeep.

"For the pain," Spike replied, using his good hand to read the label on the orange bottle.

"Are you in pain now?" Hound asked.

"Nah, he gave me a shot of something. It doesn't hurt now," said the boy. "But I'll probably be feeling it tomorrow when the painkillers ware off."

Nearing the Ark's entrance, Hound allowed his two passengers to dismount before transforming. Spike was picking at the gauze wrapping his hand and some of his forearm.

"Stop picking at it," His father chastised as they walked into the familiar orange halls. "You'll make it come undone." Spike held the dressed appendage close to his body and allowed the other undamaged one to swing at his side as he walked. The painkiller his had been given made him feel a little loopy. He could feel it in his walk, his feet felt lighter.

Up ahead, Jazz and Smokescreen turned into the corridor. Spotting them, Jazz waved. "Hey kiddo! What's the diagnosis?"

Spike grinned and held up his bandaged hand. "Second degree burns, man!"

Jazz laughed. "Wicked." Smokescreen placed his hand on Jazz's shoulder and tilted his head, saying something. Jazz nodded and turned back. "I'll catch you guys later. Monitor duty calls."

As the two disappeared down another corridor, Spike turned to his Dad. "I'm gonna go see if Bumblebee's awake," he announced, leaving Hound and his Father to their own devices. Heading down an adjacent hallway towards the Medbay, Spike was filled with an odd feeling of excitement at showing Bumblebee his arm. It seemed like a very human concept to show off one's wounds, but then again Spike had most certainly seen Ironhide bragging about his own battle scars. In comparison, Spike's burns were nothing but a scratch. But Bumblebee always humored him. The Medbay door seemed to be open and as he neared it, Spike could hear two voices bickering within. He paused to listen.

Ratchet's voice was easily the loudest and most discernable amid the din. "…you were thinking?" The medic was saying. He didn't sound happy.

"I don't see why you're so adamantly against the idea Ratchet, it has merit—" The second voice sounded like Wheeljack. Spike's eyes widened in realization. Uh-oh…

Curiously, instead of heading the other direction, away from the brooding melee, Spike inched closer, standing just beyond the door and carefully peeking his head around to peer inside. Wheeljack stood across from Ratchet in the middle of the room. On a table beside them was Bumblebee, awake and alert and seemingly no worse for wear. He appeared to be playing the part of spectator.

"Merit?" Ratchet demanded. "Frag it Wheeljack, they're not medics! They don't need to be messing around with anyone's insides!"

"You're not even listening," Wheeljack countered.

"Of course I am," he said. "And I think it's too dangerous."

"Ratchet, maybe you should give them a chance," Bumblebee interjected. "I've been helping Spike a bit. He's got some real potential. And Sparkplug is just as good."

Before the medic could reply, Wheeljack crossed his arms and asked, "Have you seen the work they did on that flux dampener?"

Ratchet glared at the engineer. "What?"

"I gave them a flux dampener to restore. Don't worry; it's an old hydraulic one I got from the scrap heap. Have you seen it?"

"I don't need to for me to see that—"

"Oh I think you should take a look," Wheeljack insisted before heading over to the back door that led to his lab. Reappearing a few moments later, he placed the flux dampener Spike and his father had been working on atop the table next to Bumblebee. It was about the size of a car engine and was similar in shape; a conglomerate of pipes and wires, like a giant metal knot. Ratchet stared at it for a few moments before returning his stare to the engineer but said nothing.

"That's pretty impressive," Wheeljack insisted. "Half the Mechs on this ship can't do half as decent a job in twice the time and they haven't even finished restoring it yet!"

Ratchet said nothing, but just continued to stare at the dampener with an unreadable expression.

"And those control modules we installed? That was them too."

Ratchet shifted his optics to send a particularly rancid glare in Wheeljack's direction. "What?"

"Yep, that was them." Wheeljack stood firmly before his colleague. "And Spike was right about that leak in Bee's spark chamber."

"Yeah and look what that got him," Ratchet scowled.

"But he saved my life," Bumblebee reminded him.

"Technically speaking," said Ratchet. "I saved your life."

"True. But if Spike hadn't been there with me when I dropped, I could've off-lined right there and no one would've known."

"It doesn't take medical training to run for help when a 'bot just drops out of his chair like that." Ratchet abruptly seem to loose interest in the conversation and glanced around the room as if looking for something. "Speaking of which, where is that little scraplet anyway? I need to talk to him about sticking his tiny hands where they don't belong…"

Spike pulled back a little away from the door way in case the medic should glance that was and spot him.

"Hound drove him and Sparkplug to a clinic in town to have it taken care of," assured Wheeljack. "But don't get off subject. You're being too stubborn about this."

"And I'm done talking about this."

"Well we're not," Wheeljack replied, uncharacteristically firm.

Bumblebee fixed Ratchet with a firm stare. "I think you should give them a chance, doc."

"Have you even spoken to Prime?" Ratchet demanded. "What does he think about all of this?"

"Well no, we haven't told him, but…"

"Then there is nothing more to discuss," said the medic. It was more disappointing to hear Ratchet blatantly refuse their training than Spike would have thought. So engrossed in watching the conversation taking in place inside the Medbay, he was not aware that a being had snuck up behind him. The red Mech quietly squatted down behind the boy and waited several long moments before speaking, "So what are we looking at?" he whispered.

Spike jumped and cried out at the intrusion of the unanticipated voice. Startled, he whirled around and fell onto his backside. Looking up, he saw Sideswipe crouched there, blue eyes glowing with amusement.

"Oops! Sorry," the Mech said, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. "Did I scare you?"

Spike opened his mouth to berate the Mech when he realized he had been exposed. He slowly glanced to his left to see the occupants of the Medbay staring at him.

"Spike," Bumblebee said in surprise. "When'd you get back?"

"Are you OK?" Wheeljack asked. "What did the human doctors say?"

Spike opened his mouth to reply but stopped when he caught sight of Ratchet. The Medic stood tall with his arms crossed, his head dipped with a sever scowl fixed onto his mouth, and optics that peered out from under his helm and straight at him. Spike stared back with his mouth agape, his mind struggling to come to a solution to his new found predicament or at least a very good excuse. For several moments no one moved or spoke. Finally, Spike broke the four-way staring contest and turned to Sideswipe and glared, "You're an _ass_…"

Without another word, the boy scrambled to his feet and ran down the hall as fast as his legs could move. He was half way down the corridor when he heard the sound of pounding feet behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and cursed.

"Spike!" Ratchet barked, chasing after him. "Get you're scrawny aft back here!"

Spike ran faster. He didn't slow to make the turn up ahead, but luckily for him the halls were wide enough for him to make the turn with ease. Ratchet however, with his considerable more bulk, was forced to slow. Spike stopped and turned into a door way, pressing his back against the wall. A few moments later a wall of white and red ran past his hidey hole, thoroughly unaware of Spike's presence. Using the moment of opportunity to his advantage, Spike headed back the other way. He did a quick mental survey of where he was and realized he was heading towards the communications room. Maybe he could ask Jazz to shield him from Ratchet's rage or at the very least hide him for a while.

Reaching the end of the hall, Spike stopped to catch his breath. Leaning against the corner with his shoulder, he hung his head, breathing hard. His hand throbbed under the gauze, but there was no pain. He was feeling a little light headed. "Ah man…"

"…you okay kid?"

Spike looked up in surprise to see Brawn standing there in front of him, a box in his arms and a dubious expression on his face. Next to him stood a Mech Spike had never seen. He was tall and slim. His armor was a spotless blue and white and his helm reminded Spike vaguely of King Tut's death mask. He peered down at the little human as if not sure what to make of him.

"Oh… yeah, sure," Spike said breathlessly. "Just… you know… running for my life."

Brawn squinted an optic in confusion while his companion looked on in silence.

"Ratchet," Spike added. The minibot donned a look of understanding and then smirked. The other said nothing.

"So you got on the Hatchet's bad side did ya, boy?"

"Not on purpose…" Spike replied, pushing off from the wall.

Brawn chuckled. "That's how it works, kid. Welcome to the club."

Somehow, Spike didn't feel so honored to be in such a club. "I don't get it thought. I helped Bumblebee; don't I get bonus points or something?"

Brawn's face abruptly turned grim. Even the other Mech seemed more alert. "What's wrong with 'Bee?" Brawn asked.

"Hm? Oh, his auxiliary line was leaking Energon into his Spark chamber," Spike replied, tapping his chest. "He passed out in his room. I tried to figure out what was wrong with him and ended up sticking my hand into a pool unprocessed Energon," he held his bandaged arm. "Second degree burns."

"Will he be alright?" asked the unknown Mech asked. His voice was rather mellow and soft, as if he was not one to waste words.

"Yeah, he was awake and talking when I stopped by the Bay," Spike sighed and wobbled a bit on his feet he felt a wave of dizziness pass over him. "Why can't Ratchet wait until I'm not loopy on painkillers to do this?"

"Why wait till you're at peak performance when it's so much easier to catch wounded prey?" Both Spike and Brawn were taken by surprise as the white form of Ratchet stepped up beside them. The other Mech's face was unreadable.

Spike looked around him in incredulous bewilderment.

_Where the hell did_ he _come from!?_ Spike wondered before bolting back down the hall. Ratchet revved his engines in irritation before taking pursuit once more, pushing past the pair of Autobots. The Medic was amazed at just how fast the little human was capable of running considering the boy's stride was a mere 1/8th of his own. Perhaps he was in need of a tune up.

The fork in the hall loomed up ahead and Spike wracked his brain to make a decision; left or right? The sound of large feet behind him was increasing at an alarming rate and every step seemed to be just behind him. Feeling as though he were playing a twisted game of chicken with the large orange metal wall, Spike turned sharply left just as another wave of dizziness hit him. His feet stumbled over themselves and he fell to the ground. His built up momentum sent his scrawny body sliding across the metal floor and into the wall with a crash. He lay there, marveling at the lack of pain, though his limps throbbed as blood pumped through him. He was defiantly going to be sore tomorrow…

The second such fall that day, Spike wondered if he should buy sneakers with better traction. Just as the thought crossed his mind, an all-encompassing shadow fell across him. He looked up to meet the two beady blue optics of one very unhappy medic.

Ratchet loomed over the fallen human for a moment before squatting down, displeased expression firmly set. Spike jumped at the sudden movement and tried to scurry away, but one red hand swept up behind him and grabbed a hold of his shirt. A wave of vertigo washed over him as he was unexpectedly lifted off the floor and up several feet into the air. Ratchet's other hand came around his middle to better support him and then without a word, began making his way back to the Medbay.

"Go easy on 'im Doc!" Brawn called, though sounding far too amused for Spike's liking. He found himself sinking into the medic's hand and making himself as small as possible. Somehow, Chopin's Funeral March seemed an appropriate theme for the moment and played in an endless loop within his head. They passed few others, but the Mechs they happen to cross Ratchet did not slow his step or even acknowledged them as he passed. Spike sent silently pleading glances to those few but remained silent. Most of them were those he barely new or not at all. It seemed all his allies were somewhere else.

All the horror stories Sideswipe had told him came flooding back in the worst way. He recalled the advice that both his father and Bumblebee had given him, but it did little to help. Upon entering the Medbay, Spike was disheartened to see both Wheeljack and Bumblebee were gone. Striding across the main Bay, Ratchet deposited Spike on top of a table none too ceremoniously before turning and around and exiting the room without explanation. Spike sat there for a few minutes, completely bewildered at what had just happened. Across the way from him was the flux dampener, sitting harmlessly atop the table. Somehow, it made Spike feel incriminated.

It wasn't too long afterwards that Ratchet returned, with his father in hand. Sparkplug Witwicky did not look too amused either.

"God damnit Ratchet, put me down!" As the medic obediently placed the older human next to his son, Sparkplug smoothed out his shirt and glared up at the Mech. "Now what hell was that all about? Didn't your manufacturer ever install a courtesy chip or manners software? Geez."

"No, my creator didn't think it was necessary." Ratchet spat back. Spike was unable to tell whether or not he was joking.

"Now what's this all about that you had to drag me and Spike down here?" Spike looked at his father with slight worry. He was not sure such a tone was best suited at that moment.

Ratchet didn't answer him, instead he turned around and snatched the flux dampener from the other table and slapped it down in front of the two humans. While Spike felt like curling in on himself in the face of such implicating evidence, Sparkplug stood tall in defiance.

"You two did this?" Ratchet asked flatly.

"Yes," Sparkplug replied without a moment's hesitation. "Is there something wrong with it?"

Spike closed his eyes and took a slow breath. _Dad, you're so playing fire right now… _

"I'll say! You idiots installed the primary release valve backwards. Had this piece of junk been installed into anything it would have build up pressure in the main shaft and eventually cause a catastrophic failure. What the frag have those two empty headed fraggers been teaching you?"

Spike opened his eyes. _What?_

Sparkplug seemed to have had a similar reaction. "Well… we weren't sure which way the pipe led out of… so we just hooked it on and thought we'd get back to it."

Ratchet bent down more to their level of eyes sight and held up a single red, reprimanding finger. "Never 'get back to' anything. If something that vital is damaged, concentrate on that! It's spectacularly easy to forget where you are or what you're doing, especially in the thick of repairs after a battle and you have 15 or so freshly wounded that need to be stabilized. And you don't even have instant memorization abilities! If you don't know, ask! Or let someone who does take over."

Spike and Sparkplug exchanged glances. They were certainly not expecting that…

"So… what does this mean?" Spike asked hesitantly.

"It means," Ratchet growled. "That if you two are going to be any help at all, you're gonna need proper training. And seeing as I'm the only one on this slagging planet that has medical programming and knows what the slag they're doing, I guess I'll have to. We'll start from the beginning."

"Wait," Sparkplug said. "You're gonna… teach us?"

Ratchet squared his shoulders. "That a problem?"

"No," replied the human. "Just… I thought you didn't want us to know this stuff. I thought it was too dangerous."

Ratchet glared. "It is! But if you insist on learning it regardless of my opinion and continue doing it behind my back, I might as well make sure you two know what the frag you're doing so you don't kill someone and give me more work to do. That okay with you?"

Sparkplug glanced at his son and the two smiled. "No," Sparkplug replied. "That's… great. When do we start?"

"Now," the medic replied. He fixed his optics on Spike. "Lesson one: Don't stick your hands in unprocessed Energon."


	4. Chapter 3 part 1

Author's Notes: a bit late in updating, but yeah, here's the next chapter. Like the last one, I'll be separating it into two halves because it's grown to such a length! Anyway, thanks to everyone who has reviewed, watched, faved and everything!

* * *

**Truth and Responsibility**

* * *

Spike listened blissfully to the music streaming from his ear-phones, running a clean rag over the top of the red metal. Thin cables ran from each phone down to a single cord that then fed into the jack port of a dark grey cassette player that was clipped onto his back pocket. The tape inside ran smoothly and the voice of John Lennon sang _'…was younger, so much younger then toda~ay, I didn't need anybody's help in any way…'_

What had been mere spare parts naught but two week ago was now a near complete mechanical arm, assembled from arbitrary parts from the storage shed. Naked wires jetted out from the shoulder, waited to be connected. The hand was the only major part left to assemble and so far Spike had been laboring diligently on it for almost two hours. Spike grabbed another bolt from the box and took out the wrench from his tool belt.

'…_but now those days are gone and I'm not so self assured…'_

Placing the bolt in the appropriate socket, he began to twist it in place.

'…_now I find I've changed my mind, I've opened up the doors_

_Help me if you can I'm feeling down_

_And I do appreciate you being 'round_

_Help me get my feet back on the ground_

_Won't you please, please help me?'_

Once securely fastened as much as he could, his father would be by later in the day to use an electric wrench to tighten the bolts securely, Spike reached for another bolt from the box just to his left, but found there were none. Surprised at not immediately being able to grab one from the box, which he assumed would have held plenty; he looked over and pulled off his headphones to peer inside. Sure enough, the bolts were all used up.

He sighed. Rule # 3 of Ratchet's Safety and Repair Regulations; always make double sure you are properly equipped to complete the initial repairs. Counting his lucky stars that Ratchet was not currently around to note Spike's blunder, the boy got to his feet and began searching the table top for extra bolts. He replaced his headphones over his ears and allowed Paul McCartney to dreamily lull away his melancholy ballad, somehow seeming very appropriate, _'…Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away. Now it looks as thought they're here to stay. Oh I believe in yesterday…'_

A quick search revealed not a sing bolt was to be had in his immediate area and Spike glared at his surrounds in frustration. Just as he was really getting into his work rhythm, something had to come along and mess it all up. He suddenly found himself sympathizing with Ratchet. Spike blinked and shook the thought away, nearly dislodging his ear-phones. Righting them, he picked up the empty box and walked to the edge of the table.

The most prominent obstacle for both Spike and his father were their size compared to that of their surroundings. Wheeljack, being the dynamic mad scientist he was, obligingly constructed a series of ladders which he placed in rooms where the two humans most often frequented and thus allow the pair a bit more independence while also sparing them the continual embarrassment of having to ask for a 'hands up' so they might be somewhat eye level with everyone else. Using one such ladder, Spike climbed down the work table and onto the Medbay floor.

Wheeljack's lab was adjacent to the 'bay, but the door leading to the engineer's territory was locked from that entry point. Both Spike and Sparkplug were forbidden from entering the lab unless in the company of a responsible Autobot. Spike left the Medbay and took the long way around to the front of the lab, hoping Wheeljack would be there and hopefully be able to supply the young man with the desired bolts that he sought…while keeping quite about it all. Upon reaching the lab, Spike found the room to be void of the resident engineer and his spirits drooped. Disheartened, but no less determined, Spike looked down each hall for any passerbyers before making his way into the room. He knew exactly where Wheeljack kept the spare bits and pieces, which was quite a miracle considering the perpetual state of 'natural disaster' the lab was in at any given point in time. Or perhaps a more apt label would be 'unnatural'. It wouldn't take long to gather a few of the desired bolts and be on his way before anyone was any wiser. No harm no foul, right?

Wheeljack's lab was only a quarter the size of the Medbay, but held five times as many parts and machines and doodads and whatever cluttered up the walls and every available space. A large monitor dominated the far right wall with another table that also acted as an impromptu examination berth sitting squarely in the middle. A long counter followed the length of three of the walls, covered in Wheeljack's experiments in varying stages of completion. He found the ladder easy enough, leaning against the far right side, clear across the room from where he wanted to be. Scaling the ladder, Spike hopped onto the table, careful of the various bits of mechanical paraphernalia littering it. Navigating his way across the table, Spike rounded the room until he encountered what looked like a desk drawer that had been removed from said desk. Inside were hundreds of comparatively small bolts and whatnot. Spike filled his box as much as the weak cardboard could hold and how much he could carry before making his way back across the table. Scaling around the chunks of mechanic doo-dads while The Beatles has just ended their melodic assertion that all one needs is love, Spike didn't notice when his foot tripped the switch of some nameless device as he scrambled over it, more engaged in not spilling his treasure then tripping unknown switches. Nor did he notice the small screen upon which that flashed a series of red numbers that read out: 00:00:60. And then the numbers began a count down, all the while Spike was blissfully unaware.

He scaled back down the ladder, careful of his cargo and exited the room. As he walked down the hallway back to the Medbay, a new song began playing and he hummed and sang along with the familiar music as it whispered through his headphones.

"…you say goodbye and I say…"

_**KABOOM! **_

Paul McCartney was instantly drowned out by the colossal explosion that sent a wave of heated air down the hall ways, knocking Spike clear over his feet. The box flew from his arms, sending bolts scattering across the floor. For several moments, the world was still and silent save for the sound of smoldering substances; charred metal and other indistinguishable materials. A profound sense of foreshadowed doom washed over the boy and silence, deathly nauseating silence permeated his thoughts. Slowly and with extreme reluctance, Spike pushed himself onto his knees and glanced over his shoulder. The door to Wheeljack's lab had been blown clear off and its charred and blackened remnants was plastered to the opposite wall before teetering slowly back, accompanied by a long high pitched creaking noise, before finally toppling over completely with a resounding crash. Smoldering pieces of…something littered the hall while tiny flakes of ash rained down like confetti, and an acrid smoke hung in the air.

Spike stared at the sight in dumbstruck horror, his mouth agape and eyes wide.

"Ah…_shit_," he muttered, turning over and sitting on his rear as he surveyed the damage. _'I am so slagged…' _

"What the frag was that?!" Someone yelled somewhere further down the halls and then running foot steps could be heard, heading towards Wheeljack's lab. Spike's heart tried to escape out his throat and a wave of dread, worse then the initial wave, passed over him. Without another word, he ran back to the safety of the Medbay, leaving behind his scattered bolts.

It wasn't long before a commotion began brewing outside the doors and, pretending to be just another curious onlooker, Spike peeked out side the Medbay. Down the hall he could see Inferno spraying white foam into the room to douse any possible embers. Behind him stood Prowl, Ironhide, and Red Alert, all of whom were staring with displeasure at an obviously dumbfounded Wheeljack. The engineer was staring at the charred mess of his lab, rubbing the back of his head, clearly puzzled. Spike felt his gut tighten with guilt. However, not enough that he felt compelled to confess to the deed.

He still had_ some_ self preservation instincts.

It was hard to tell what they were saying with any clarity, but it was obvious they were blaming Wheeljack for the explosion and the resulting mess. A minute or so later, Ratchet arrived. Spike could hear Ratchet clearly.

"Was anyone hurt?" The medic demanded instantly, for a moment seeming like the concerned medic he supposedly was. There was some shakings of heads and replies of negative. Wasting no time, Ratchet turned to face Wheeljack and then promptly smacked him upside the head with a melodic _twang!_ "You maniac! What'd you do this time?"

"Nothing!" Wheeljack protested, proclaiming his innocence. "I wasn't even _here_ when it happened!"

"Then what happened?"

"I…I don't know! It's the darndest thing Ratch…I just-"

"'Darndest thing' my aft! You set explosives off by simply walking by them!"

After a few minutes and a few more verbal bashings, the crowd finally dispersed and everyone returned to their previous activities. Prowl escorted Wheeljack to his office, likely for questioning, while Red Alert continued surveying the damage. Spike watched as Ratchet walked up the hall towards the Medbay, looking very much like a warring thunderhead ready to unleash his fury.

"Get inside," the medic barked at him as he entered. "Who knows what slag is in this smoke. Primus knows I ain't gonna be hauling your scrawny little chassis down to the hospital if you drop dead from smoke inhalation. I have too much work to do without you adding to it."

Spike obliged wordlessly, stepping back inside and Ratchet closed the doors after him.

"What happened?" Spike asked, playing innocent bystander.

"Who knows. Wheeljack has so much junk in there it's impossible to know what set whatever off," grouched the Mech, approaching the table where Spike's project lay. It was a testament to just how common an occurrence Wheeljack's lab blowing really was that Ratchet pushed away his lingering ire and put on his teaching cap. "Let's see what you've got here…"

Spike climbed the ladder up to the top of the table and was silent as his work was scrutinized by the medic.

"You haven't finished the hand," the medic stated disapprovingly, picking the arm up and inspecting it. "I'd have thought you'd have it nearly done by now." Ratchet pinned him with an accusatory optic. "You been slacking?"

"No," Spike said, but his mind still lingering on Wheeljack's lab. "Will Wheeljack be in trouble?"

"Yes." Ratchet slowly bent the arm at the elbow and then frowned.

"…what'll happen to him?" Spike continued, barely paying attention to Ratchet's ministrations.

"Punishment detail, most likely. Prowl is the type of Mech who likes to reward bad behavior and broken protocol with manual labor and night shift monitor duty."

"...but 'Jack didn't do anything!"

Ratchet looked down at him suspiciously. "He's been warned often enough about keeping unstable compounds and equipment in his lab. He's a repeat offender. Why are _you_ so concerned? He's a big bot, he can handle his own screw ups. He doesn't need an immature organic to defend him."

Spike maintained his composure, albeit barely, and shrugged. "I just…think it's unfair to punish him if he really didn't DO anything wrong."

"Yes, well here's something else that's not fair," Ratchet replied, pointing to the elbow of the mechanical arm. "You need to replace this ball bearing."

Spike forgot about Wheeljack in an instant and gaped at the medic with indignation. "What? _Why_?"

Ratchet held the arm out and bent it at the elbow quickly as if intending to break it in half. Instead of snapping like a twig, it screeched with the sound of resisting metal on scrapping forcefully against metal. Spike was forced to cover his ears for the sake of preserving his hearing.

"It's a bad bearing," Ratchet replied lowly and slapped the arm down onto the table before retreating to his office. The arm sat there pitifully and unwanted. "I told you not to use the parts in the blue box. I put them in there for a reason."

Spike stared at the arm as if it had greatly offended him. With a curse, he grabbed his tools and went to work. Ratchet's exercise in knowledge and authority had effectively jolted the bearing from its potion and all the bolts that had been holding various things in place were bent or stripped completely. After he removed them all, he reached behind him for his box of bolts, but when he found there were none and he recalled that day's events, he cursed even louder and threw the wrench in his hand across the room.

"Frag it!"

* * *

Feeling more exhausted in both mind and body than he had in a long while, Spike hefted his backpack over his shoulder and began his daily trek outside where his Hound was waiting to take both him and his father home for the night. It took another hour, but Spike had replaced the ball bearing with a new one and Ratchet had demonstrated the proper way to test one to tell if it's good or not. Looking forward to a hot shower and a long nights sleep, Spike walked along in silence, already half dozing and blind to most everything. So he did not notice Sideswipe leaning against the wall even as he passed him.

The red Mech waited until Spike had walked ahead of him a bit before speaking. "So, you blew up 'Jack's lab did ya?"

Spike froze, feeling very much awake. He turned slightly, looking over his shoulder and trying not to let his shock show through his wary face. "W-what?"

Sideswipe grinned and pushed off from the wall. "Oh, nothing," he said nonchalantly and strolled up to the boy, circling him like a shark that smelt blood in the water. "I just happened to be walking by the labs a little while ago and saw you stroll on out of 'Jack's lab right before it went all super nova like that. Lucky thing too, that blast could've barbequed you nice and black."

Spike swallowed. "I didn't do anything. I was in the Medbay…"

"What did you do to make it that loud?" Sideswipe asked, pretending not to hear. "It was really bright too! My optics had to recalibrate!"

"I did nothing!" Spike insisted, getting annoyed.

"Must've been something real special. I didn't know you were a pyrotechnic enthusiast." Sideswipe had the audacity to look thoughtful. "I wonder what ol' Wheeljack did to make you wanna blow him up..?"

"Nothing!" Spike snapped. "It was an accident! I didn't want to blow anyone…"

Spike paled when he realized what he had let slip and clamped his hands over his mouth. Sideswipe's grin widened and he leaned his shoulders against the wall once more, looking down at Spike like a cat that had cornered a doomed mouse.

"Really? How unfortunate that Jack's been given midnight monitor duty all this week when he didn't even do anything. You must feel horribly guilty."

Spike looked up at Sideswipe with venom in his eyes. "What do you want from me?"

Sideswipe suddenly looked very cheerful. "Not much," he replied jovially. "I'm here to make you a deal."

"Deal?" Spike asked dubiously.

"Right, a deal. You humans do that sort of thing right? Well, here's the jist: I'll take the fall for blowing 'Jack's lab and in return, you'll owe me a favor or two."

Spike blinked. "...that's all?"

That didn't sound so bad…

Sideswipe nodded. "That's all."

"…but…why?"

"What?" Sideswipe replied, drawing back with indignation. "Autobots are renowned for their compassion and desire to help all living beings! Can't I simply offer my help to ease the guilt you must be feeling? It's a heavy burden to bear for one so small and fragile and....squishy and stuff."

"…maybe, but honestly you don't give the impression of compassionate aide giver," Spike replied, smelling a rat. "More like a used car salesman trying to make his quota."

"You cut me deep, Spike," Sideswipe replied, sounding hurt. "Real deep. I didn't want to do this, but it seems you give me little choice."

Sideswipe reached down and opened a panel on his forearm and pulled out a disk. Compared to Spike it was the size of a large serving tray, but pinched between two black metal fingers it appeared quite small. Somehow, Spike felt a twinge of disquiet.

"You know what this is?" Sideswipe asked wistfully.

Spike shook his head. Sideswipe's grin took on a devious note. "It's the security feed data disk for the lab corridor. It shows everything; you walking in, you walking out, and then…Boom! Some incriminating stuff here laddy."

The human felt the world started to close in around him slowly like the coils of a giant boa constrictor. "H-how'd you get that?"

"I have my ways," he replied and put the disk back into his forearm panel. "Here's the deal Tiny Tim; I'll get to Prowl and spill my guts, as it were, to confess my guilt and clear good ol' Wheeljack's name. When I get out of the brig in, oh about two days, you be ready to do exactly what I say. Got that?"

"And if I don't?"

"If you don't this little disk is going find its way onto Red Alert's desk. Or Ratchet's. I haven't decided which is worse. Same goes if you spill the beans to anyone; especially Prime. Don't go thinking you can bypass the suits into higher authority."

Feeling a little ill, Spike sighed. "Do I have a choice?"

"Not at all," Sideswipe replied sweetly. "Oh don't look so glum, little buddy! I ain't gonna make you do anything you'll regret!"

And like a naïve child, Spike believed him.

The next day, Spike heard about Sideswipe being found out to be the real Mech responsible for igniting Wheeljack's lab like a large roman candle. Apparently, he had been bragging about it to Sunstreaker and Prowl just happened to overhear. The red Mech's explanation was that it has been a prank gone wrong, which everyone seemed to readily accept. He got a week in the brig. It would have been only three days, but when Red alert found out Sideswipe had taken part of the security feed to mask his crime, he lobbied for his punishment to be extended. Prowl did not hesitate to comply with the security director.

Despite his primary apprehensions, Spike actually felt better. Wheeljack was forgiven, although he was given strict warnings on what exactly was to be kept in his lab and what was not, and released from midnight monitoring duty. The task of repairing his lab kept Wheeljack and the rest of the engineering and construction team busy while the apparent perpetrator stewed in the brig. Spike and his father continued with their assignments and life was peaceful for the rest of the week.

Sideswipe was released from the brig on Friday night, just as Spike and his father were setting off to return home. Before he could leave, Sideswipe called Spike over.

"Yeah?" He asked, fearing the worst.

"Bring a bag of flour tomorrow," Sideswipe told him.

Spike looked on in confusion, his anxiety easing into skepticism. "What?"

"Flour. That white powdery stuff you guys use."

"No! I know what you mean I just-! …w-why?"

"Just do it," Sideswipe said before walking off.

The next day, they arrived at the Ark bright and early. Spike had remembered to bring the flour and hid it in his backpack so as not to arouse suspicion. It would be hard and quite awkward to explain just why he was bringing a sack of all purpose white flour to a base of giant alien robots. At first he had no idea where to find Sideswipe and he even humored the idea of just letting it go and head up to the Medbay. But the moment he found himself alone in the halls, the red Mech materialized with a wide grin on his face-plate.

"Did you bring it?" He asked eagerly, optics practically sparkling. Without a word, Spike produced the requested flour sac and Sideswipe plucked it up. He held it to his face, examining it as if it were a gem he had just spontaneously stumbled upon.

"Can I go?" Spike asked impatiently. He was starting to suspect Sideswipe was not going to be baking with that flour…

"Oh no," Sideswipe replied jovially. "I still need you for something."

Spike groaned.

"Uh-uh, none of that," Sideswipe said, waving a finger at Spike. "Remember, I know you're little secret…"

With extreme reluctance, Spike complied. It was barely a few minutes later when he thoroughly regretted ever going into Wheeljack's lab in the first place. There was no way in God's Green Earth, that a few spare bolts were worth any of this.

Sideswipe had led the boy down the halls to a seemingly arbitrary spot. Without speaking, Sideswipe pulled a strange little device that resembled a spider somewhat, with thin metal 'legs' sprouting out from a round disk, and attached it to the flour sac with amazing dexterity. Turning to the wall, he addressed the target; a ventilation grate. The Mech carefully removed the grate opening and then without warning, he plucked Spike from the ground. The boy cried out, startled. Sideswipe sat him inside the vent before handing him the flour sac.

Now Spike had a _very_ bad feeling about this…

"Alright," Sideswipe said. "Just crawl down a few yards and take the third left. When you reach the end, there will be another grate. Just set that on top and crawl back out this way. Got that?"

"I don't think I should be doing this…"

"That's fine. I wouldn't want to force you to do anything you didn't want to do. I guess I'll just have to go to Prowl and…"

"Okay! Okay, jeez. Fine, I'll do it." Hefting the sac of flour, Spike headed into the Ark's ventilation system. The shaft itself was surprisingly large but not quite tall enough for him to stand comfortably in. So crouching slightly, Spike made his way down and then took the third left as instructed. A short ways ahead was the aforementioned grate. As he approached and looked through the thin metal slates, Spike realized he was looking down into someone's room. Autobots, Cybertronians in general he assumed, were not materialistic beings so from what little was in the room it was impossible to wager a guess as to whom it belonged. But it was now that Spike was forming a vague idea of exactly why Sideswipe had wanted the flour and why he quickly hurried out once the flour was planted. As soon as Spike reappeared from the ventilation, Sideswipe grabbed a hold of him, none too gently either, and quickly replaced the grate before running for the nearest vantage point, Spike tucked neatly in the crook of his arm. From there…they waited.

It wasn't long before the apparent owner of the booby-trapped room appeared. Gears was a hard Mech to miss despite his small size. A blaring paint job of red and blue made sure of that and what was more, his sour demeanor was nearly as palpable as his constant mutterings were audible. The Autobot entered his room, blissfully ignorant. Well…not 'blissfully', but assuredly ignorant.

Spike began to say something but was quickly shushed and then finally placed back on the ground. Despite being technically free, Spike remained to see the ending to this odd venture. A few moments later there was a muted pop from within the room and Sideswipe snickered. Not a second after that, Gears ran out of the room, billows of white fog whooshing out with him, coated from cranium to tipy tip toe…in all purpose white flour. White as any ghost, Gear's optics sizzled with rage as he scanned the area for the culprit. It was at that very moment that Spike realized that Sideswipe had vanished and left him behind. And it was right after that thought that Spike realized Gear was coming his way. With haste, Spike skedaddled for the nearest place to cower behind. As he was hiding from the irate Minibot, Spike pondered to himself the exact severity of the situation he had somehow unwittingly gotten himself into.

He received an answer two days later.


	5. Chapter 3 part 2

**_Author's Notes:_** A bit late on this update, for which I apologize. I hope anyone still out there reading this will enjoy this chapter. Thanks for all the reviews and favs.

* * *

Truth and Responsibility part II

* * *

The High School was a-buzz with life as young men and women spent their lunch break in their normal fashion.

Engrossed in his math text as he performed a quick last moment cram session, Spike was disconnected from his surroundings. He had sought refuge for a quiet place to study far into the field near the student parking lot. Cramming the last bit of his sandwich into his mouth as he recited formulas in his head, the sounds of the school were distant and unimportant. The only sound he was listening out for was the bell, signaling everyone to move on to their next class.

But instead of hearing the high pitch _ring-a-ding-ding_, his ears were assaulted by the loud boorish howl of a car horn. Startled from his thoughts, Spike glanced with annoyance towards the parking lot to visually identify the culprit. His heart plummeted when his eyes fell upon a familiar a red Lamborghini upon which was an even more familiar red sigil. One spot over was an unfamiliar yellow Lamborghini, same sigil. Despite its unfamiliarity, it was not too difficult to discern who it was. Belatedly, Spike realized both vehicles were covered in dirt and caked mud. Had the visit been conducted under any other circumstances, he would have found the picture hilarious, but knowing his position Spike felt a wave of dread sweep over him.

Slowly closing his book, Spike continued to stare at the two disguised Autobots wearily. In the back of his mind, he pondered the likelihood and practicality of making a run for it. Whatever Sideswipe wanted, it did not bode well for him. Another impatient honk brought him out of it and he gathered his things and stood. Approaching with reluctance, Spike was now aware of that Sideswipe's yellow counterpart seemed to be 'growling'; the sound of an impatiently engine revving faintly as if gearing to make a break for it. Spike gave it a wide berth and then stood near Sideswipe's front bumper.

Before he could ask the obvious, the red Autobot spoke first, driving right to the point. "Hey there kiddo. How's about you accompany my bro and me to the car wash, hm?"

Spike bit back a snarky reply and instead just gazed at the Autobot's windshield incredulously. "…and why should I?"

"Lots of reasons!" Sideswipe chirped jovially. "One reason being that we're both dirty as the pits, and Sunny_ hates_ to be dirty…"

"Don't call me Sunny…" the yellow one snarled, but his brother continued on as if he had not heard.

"…and also because if we just showed up by our lonesome selves, all the humans would freak and that's against protocol." A pause. "Plus they don't accept Cybertronian credits. We need human currency. You have currency right?"

Sideswipe's font tires turned and twisted in an eager manner. Spike knitted his brow, a tight knot in his stomach. "Yeah, but…"

"Great! So hop in and let's get going!" Sideswipe's passenger door swung open in invitation accompanied by a short, almost playful rev of his engine. Spike suddenly decided the world was spinning a bit too fast for his mind to keep up and pressed his hands up in protest.

"Wait, wait wait. Wait just a moment. Let me get this straight…you want me to buy you both a car wash? Like…now?"

A beat.

"You process that all on your own?" the yellow Lamborghini murmured with a definite hint of animosity underneath. Spike didn't dignify the Autobot with a response.

He turned to glare at Sideswipe. "Even if I had enough of my allowance left, I can't do it."

Sideswipe stopped twisting his wheels. "And why is that?"

With a sign, Spike gestured grandly to the school behind him. "You see those buildings over there? That's a school. And I go to that school. By law I am required to go to that school from 8:00 am to 2:35 PM, Monday through Friday. If I left, I'd get in trouble. BIG trouble. Like 'cosmic fury would rain unholy wrath upon my head' trouble."

"Pfshaw! No one's gonna know."

"Yes they will."

"No they won't."

"They take roll call. So no I am not go…"

The yellow Lamborghini suddenly roared to life and lurched forward, bumper aimed at Spike's shins, and forcing Sideswipe to back up or else have an unsightly meeting of bumper to bumper. Lunging back into the chained link fence, Spike found himself staring at the steaming front end of a pissed of Lamborghini. Pinned between the fence and the irate motor vehicle, Spike could do nothing but stare up at the Autobot's windshield. It might have been his imagination, but he could have sworn the glass was glowering at him.

"Listen closely you bipedal amoeba! I am _filthy_. There is dust in my vents, under my axel, and everywhere else. There is mud in places Ratchet's never been and I swear to Primus if you value your mobility, you better get us to that car wash or so help me you'll be nothing but a _smear_ on the road!"

* * *

Spike felt sick. Leaning on the sink in the restroom of Bert's Handy-Dandy Car Wash, he splashed blessedly cool water over his face, wracking his brain for a solution to his growing-no, _festering_ problem.

Sideswipe was a problem. A big problem. He had made a grave error the day he agreed to a 'deal' with him. One he dearly hoped he would live to regret, not that he hadn't already began to do so.

Just outside, the two Lamborghinis were getting their final detailing after taking a ride through the automated wash. Sunstreaker, seeming to find something about Humanity that he liked, demanded to go through again. Having been tickled silly at the idea of a pair of such high end cars being at his wash, the owner did not charge Spike for the extra go, a fact for which the boy was grateful. For all his troubles that day and the weeks prior, it was a small miracle Spike had just enough money to cover the bill. However, he would be fasting during lunch for the remainder of the week. He could always pawn a carton of chocolate milk from Andrew Herbert, who was lactose intolerant. And Mathew Caraway was usually quite generous with his potato chips.

Spike's moment of solitude was interrupted by a wave of air as the door opened and a man, the attendant, poked his head in, looking decidedly nervous. Spike decided right then that whatever the man said, it was not likely to bode well for him. The ever present knot in his stomach tightened.

"Excuse me, but did you come in with two sports cars? One red and one yellow?"

Spike braced himself. "Yeah, is something wrong?"

The man stepped all the way into the room and rubbed the back of his neck. "No…uh, that is, I don't think there is. It's just that…well…there's a cop outside who wants to talk to you."

At first, Spike felt a wave of dread. First impression was that the cop probably thought Spike had stolen the cars and wanted proof of ownership. There weren't many high end vehicles in this county. But then again…they were Autobots and did not belong to anyone. How would he explain to a policeman that the two cars were in fact alien robot who only looked like cars? And then a beat afterwards he thought of something else. Something much, much worse…

"Shit…" was all Spike could muster as he pushed passed the attendant and into the lobby. Through the front window Spike was indeed greeted by the visage of a very familiar Datsun police car with an equally familiar sigil printed upon its hood, looking distinctly stern as only Prowl could. Behind him were two Lamborghinis, polished and shinned and happy. Acting as a counterpoint to all that joyfulness, Spike decided it better to face the music and made his way out of the lobby and into the front. The trek over to the three vehicles seemed to take forever and every step reverberated throughout his limbs, his heart racing with the thought of soon to be repercussion of that day's actions. Somehow, 'Sideswipe made me do it' did not seem an adequate excuse and in all likelihood would only hurt him in the long run.

Approaching the Datsun, Spike skipped all pretenses and bit the bullet. Addressing the Autobot Officer with a calm, tired resignation, Spike said "Can we skip the lecture this time and just head back to the Ark?"

A pause and then the Autobot's voice, clip and straight forward, replied "Very well." His back seat door popped open and Spike accepted it without question, sliding into the back and sinking into the seats and feeling like a petty criminal.

"Does my Dad know?" Spike asked.

"He was informed of your absence by one of your instructors when you failed to report to your scheduled lessons at the education center. He sent me to locate and retrieve you."

There was no real answer Spike would think of so he simply sat there, shame faced and trying to look pitiful in an attempt to glean some sort of sympathy. Shame and very real guilt swelled inside him as they pulled out of the car wash.

His Dad was going to _kill_ him…

* * *

"I've _never_ been this disappointed in you boy!"

His father words stung like a whip as the phrase was repeatedly swung around between ire filled anecdotes. Sparkplug Witwicky had very nearly dragged his son out of Prowl's back seat upon their arrival and found a quiet, private place to give his son a good stern lecture. However, the chosen place was no longer private for as the older man laid into his son about responsibility and character, an audience began to grow. Several Autobots who were mostly just passing through, stopped to watch and listen while trying to make it look like they were doing something. Only Spike seemed aware of them and it made taking his Father's lecture all the more difficult. He just wanted to melt into the wall and disappear.

"What would your Mother think? God rest her soul…"

_That_ one hurt.

"You're throwing your future away and for what? To go joy riding with those two knuckle heads? How could you be so _stupid_? I thought I raised you better then this!"

Spike did nothing, said nothing, and only stood there immobile as he accepted the verbal abuse. His son's lack of response only seemed to fuel Spakplug's anger and he continued on for a several more minutes before handing down his final punishment. "You're grounded for two weeks. No television, no radio, no Autobots. When you get home from school tomorrow you'll head home and stay there. You'll ram your nose into those books and study till you go to bed. Do I make myself clear boy?"

Thoroughly reprimanded, Spike nodded pitifully and in a low, broken voice replied "Yes sir."

"Now you sit here till we leave. Got it?"

He nodded.

Sparkplug left the room, stomping away back to the Medbay. Spike sank to the floor and sat there, staring at the ground. Around him, the Autobots hovered a moment before dispersing to continue on with their work. It was a little while later that Bumblebee stopped by to see how Spike was doing, but barely had they gotten into a conversation when Ironhide strode into the room and barked at them, "Bumblebee! Leave the kid alone. His Dad's trying to teach him a lesson, now get on with your work before_ I_ teach you a lesson."

Bumblebee hurried on his way, but not before giving his smaller friend a rueful, sympathetic smile. Ironhide followed close behind, but not before sending a distinctly 'don't you try anything' sort of look Spike's way. Great, now the Autobots thought he was a punk too.

Spike shrunk in on himself and gazed across the large empty room.

"Stupid Sideswipe…"

* * *

Life became very boring the two weeks of Spike restriction. It was not until he was not allowed to go to the Ark that he realized how much excitement the Autobots brought to his otherwise mundane existence. School was ever the same, except now several of his teachers looked at him with a sort of disappointment and always seemed to call his name a little louder at roll call. None of his peers seemed any the wiser save for a few other boys who were notorious for skipping classes. One boy, Richard Paterson, had asked him rather covertly in the locker room before gym if he would like to go 'ditch this load of crap and go to the arcade'. Spike quickly refused, dressed, and headed out to the field. He was smart enough not to open that can of worms again. He had learned his lesson even if it was a lesson Spike did not feel he really needed to learn in the first place.

However, despite all his woes there was one small grace his punishment granted him and that was two weeks free of Sideswipe. Which meant two weeks free of trouble. With a bound determination, Spike did exactly as he had been told. After school he took the bus home and studied for several hours before Hound arrived to drop his father off for the night. It was the only moments during his restriction Spike would see any of the Autobots and he watched through his bedroom window. As he pulled out of the drive way, Hound would flash his lights in a friendly, if not convert, greeting to the jailed youth inside.

It was a small gesture, but one Spike greatly appreciated.

Towards the end of his sentence, those around him seemed less suspicious of him as it became apparent that Spike had learned his lesson. His Father returned to speaking to him in his normal fashion instead of using the 'disappointed father' voice and even invited Spike into the living room one night to watch a movie with him. His teachers lost the distrust in their eyes, especially as his grades improved and things were settling back into place.

The last day of his restriction was a Saturday and the day started off wonderfully. His father slept in as he always did on Saturdays and Spike got up early to do a bit of cleaning; a sort of 'I'm sorry for skipping school I'll never do it again I'm a good boy I swear please forgive me' sort of gesture. As he finished drying the last dish in the sink, a flash of red caught his eye. Looking up and out of the small kitchen window, he spotted a red Lamborghini driving along the street before easing into their driveway and honking.

And the day had started so peacefully…

Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Spike calmed his racing heart. He had been granted a two week Sideswipe free card and during those two weeks he had a lot of time to think about his problem. The solution was clear as day, but not at all palatable. It did not take long for him to conclude that being under Sideswipe's constant beck and call was far worse a punishment and far worse for his health then admitting to the others that he'd been the one who had blown up Wheeljack's lab. It'd been so long ago now that he began to think, nay hope, that any ill feelings would be stale and nonexistent by now.

Another impatient honk brought Spike out of his thoughts and he headed out the door to see what the red devil wanted. Standing out in the chill morning air, Spike beheld the red Autobot with barely concealed distain.

"What do you want?" the boy demanded.

"You should have a pretty good idea by now."

"Whatever it is I want no part in it."

"Ah, c'mon. You're not still beat up over the car wash thing are you?" Spike answered by starring daggers into the car's windshield. A sigh hissed from somewhere inside his engine. "You are still mad," Sideswipe affirmed. "Well I got something that might cheer you up!"

"You're gonna leave me alone?"

"Ha ha, funny. But no. Not quite. See there's this monster truck show downtown tomorrow night and I…"

"No."

"But you haven't even heard me out!"

"I don't care. I'm not doing it."

"You don't even know what it is!"

"Still not caring. See this? This is my 'I don't give a darn' face."

Sideswipe sank on his tires and idled there a moment. "Oh well," he said in mock resignation. "I guess I'll just have to give Red Alert that disk and…"

"Go ahead, I don't care. Do your worst," Spike spat back. That caught the Autobot off guard and for several seconds there was no response of any kind. The silence was beginning to become deafening and Spike felt a ball of fear swell inside his belly and he was feeling the beginnings of regret when Sideswipe seemed to come back online. And in a huff.

The car's engine revved in clear annoyance, high beams flashing, and Sideswipe backed out of the driveway with reckless negligence. "Fine, you got it sparky. But remember, it's your funeral."

And with that, Sideswipe was gone.

Spike would have thought that finally being free from the red devil's gripe would have invited a wave of elation and peace over his mind. Instead, the knot in his stomach tightened worse then ever and he felt distinctly ill.

The moment of no return was there and Spike felt himself unprepared to face what was to come.

* * *

The first sign that indicated to Spike that something was not right was when they arrived at the Ark the next day and he did not instantly burst into flames upon setting foot inside. There were no angry officers standing there to confront and punish him, no cheeky Sideswipe to taunt him…nothing. The halls were empty save for the sound of their footsteps.

Hound waved goodbye as he went off to continue on with his duties. Although Sparkplug had insisted to the green tracker that there was naught a need for him to be their continuous chaperone to and from the base, Hound merely waved the comment away, saying he enjoyed it.

"Gives me a better perspective," He had said. "And we could all use a bit of that."

The two humans walked onward and Spike's mind drifted from his current worries to pondering his current reality.

He was in a space ship, embedded within a mountain, and he and his father were simply strolling through as if they belonged there, unabated or accompanied as they had the first week. He could not say for his father, but Spike had not come to the point of feeling as though he 'belonged' anywhere, least of all inside the Autobot base. Several months of interacting with the aliens and the perpetual sense of being in the way had not left. The only time the feeling diminished any was when he was with Bumblebee. The smaller Yellow Autobot had a way of assuring him and making him feel wanted. It was odd, but in Spike's mind, he did not see Bumblebee as an alien foremost, but a friend. It was with that thought that Spike knew then what to do.

He was then aware that his father was speaking to him.

"…and we also need to clean out those cylinders today," Sparkplug was saying. "Ratchet mentioned something about wanting to get Teletran's left console operational again too and I thought…"

Sparkplug trailed off and glanced at his son with a slight concerned look. "Son? You alright?"

"Huh?" Spike asked, looking up at his father. "Oh yeah I'm fine."

"You look a bit distracted."

"Nah, I fine. Just tired, I guess."

Sparkplug's concern melted away and he laughed. "Well snap out of it," he said, giving his son a friendly slap on the back. "I doubt the Doc would take too kindly to you snoozing on duty."

Spike smiled at his father. "Hey Dad? I'm gonna go find Bumblebee real quick, OK?"

With a nod, Sparkplug gestured that he was free to go. "Sure, just don't be too long. I'm gonna need help cleaning those cylinders."

The halls of the Ark were fantastically large, wide enough to allow three Mechs to stand side by side comfortably and tall enough to accommodate the tallest of Autobots with plenty of head room. That very architectural aspect had lead Spike into the habit of standing near to the wall in case there happened to be any inattentive Autobot wandering around. It was a common occurrence for the young man to seek out Bumblebee and most often he was to be found in one of two places: his quarters or the rec room. When Spike reached Bumblebee's quarters, he found it void of the yellow Autobot, so he headed down to the rec room.

The doorway to the aforementioned room was in sight when unexpectedly, a wall of red stepped into his vision. Startled by the intrusion, Spike fell back onto behind with all the lackluster grace of a newborn fawn. Staring upwards into the face of Sideswipe, he was meant with a large, knowing grin.

"Heya Sparky," Sideswipe said jovially. "Look, about the other day: I understand you were mad. Slag, I'd be right pissed too, but you know it's all in the past now. You know, a bridge on the water…or however that idiom's supposed to go. I won't tell anyone you're little secret and we can get back to having some fun. That sound Prime to you, Sparky?"

There an underlining cockiness to his voice that Spike did not like in the least and hearing it only fueled the boy's determination to end Sideswipe's blackmail. He collected his thoughts, calmed his mind, and without a word, rose back to his feet. Trying to project an air of someone not in the least bit rattled or without a care, Spike pretended to brush off nonexistent dirt from his shirt.

Looking up into the red Mech's face with an unimpressed expression, Spike turned and walked away. "Go ahead. I don't give a crap what you do."

As the phrase left his lips, the thought that it might not have been the wisest of things to have said crossed his mind. Walking onwards, he was surprised when instead of hearing angered sputtering as he had expected, he heard Sideswipe chuckle.

Spike paused at the sound and slowly turned. "What's so funny?" demanded Spike.

Sideswipe was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking amused. "Oh deary dear, my poor Spike," Sideswipe cooed as he pulled the incriminating disk from his arm compartment. "You really don't know what's in store for you, do you?"

Spike didn't respond, but a seed of apprehension began to grown inside his stomach.

When he didn't reply, the Autobot nodded. "Not a clue," he continued, fingering the disk tauntingly. "Ah well, I suppose it is to be expected."

Sideswipe spotted the nervousness in the boy's eyes and grinned. Tucking the disk back inside his arm, Sideswipe shrugged and turned. "You are just a Human, after all. And a youngling at that. We can't be expecting any miracles out of that organic mush of processor now can we?"

Sideswipe pushed off from the wall and turned. Just as he disappeared behind the corner, his voice rang out in one last cryptic warning. "Oh well. You'll learn soon enough."

Any shred of determination Spike had was gone in a moment's flash and he hurried to find a place in which to hide.

* * *

The firing range was a large area separated off from the Rec room and sparing areas. It was in use when he hastily entered.

Ironhide only gave the boy the merest of glances and a curt nod as a greeting before returning to his current occupation. Pistol held firming in hand, the officer fired rapid sessions of bullets towards the target far at the end of the room. Ironhide was one of the less enigmatic Autobot officers. He seemed more down to earth and 'one of the boys' then either Prowl or Red Alert. Although his temper was short and his rampant suspicion gave the Security Director a run for his money, Ironhide was somewhere in the middle of the Autobot spectrum. Not as friendly or sociable as Bumblebee or Jazz, but no where near as ornery as Gears or Sunstreaker.

Climbing atop a storage unit, Spike made himself comfortable and waited. For what exactly he dreaded to think about. In all the world all he was ever trying to do was help and somehow it could never be that simple. What was is about being a teenager that made life so difficult? He sighed and watched the large red Mech fire round upon round across the room.

It wasn't long before Spike's ears were ringing like Notre Dame.

As Ironhide reloaded his pistol, the doors opened up to admit a new face. Smokescreen was what the Humans of Earth would call a player. It was not hard to see why he and Jazz always hung around each other so often. They were both charismatic, confident, and highly social. However, while Jazz's talents lay in his ability to unite and lead, Smokescreen's lay more in the area of deceit and illusion. Bumblebee once told him that Smokescreen was one of their saboteurs, but did not explain to him what that entailed. Nevertheless, Spike felt he got a fairly decent impression of the kind of Mech he was after once spotting him enticing his fellow Autobots into playing a human card game and walking away with their credits naught an hour later.

Spike liked Smokescreen.

Normally, whenever Spike was in a room he was the last one to be noticed, but not where Smokescreen was concerned, he noticed everything. The yellow and blue Autobot spotted him immediately and grinned over at the boy.

"Well, well, so this is where you've been hiding, then," He said as he moved to stand beside Spike. "Ratchet's looking for ya, y'know."

The boy couldn't help look shame faced as he tried to come up with a reason as to why he was in there of all places and not in the Medbay, as perusal. The Autobot noticed the hesitation, the uncomfortable body language, but made no move to indicate he had or to question it. It was his job to detect and recognize things, not point them out.

Instead, he leaned against the unit, propping his frame up with his elbows and called over to Ironhide and he raised his pistol to bear. "Hey, 'Hide, you hear about Blue's patrol last night?"

Ironhide paused long enough to give his reply, "Prowl mentioned something about a goat during this morning debriefing." He started firing again, sending Spike ears a-ringing.

Smokescreen laughed, the sound muffled by the din, sending a faint tremble through the metal Spike sat upon. "It was more then one! Poor slagger. Kid's a great shot, but he's no expert at thinking on his feet."

Ironhide paused again to reply, "Blue's smart. He's just not as quick-minded as you."

The saboteur grinned and shrugged his shoulders, "No I suppose not."

Ironhide began firing once more and no one spoke until he lowered it to reload.

"So," Smokescreen said nonchalantly, glancing up at the ceiling as if there was something interesting up there. "Sideswipe's been givin' you a hard time, has he?"

Something between a snort, a cough, and a gasp emitted from the boy and he gazed up at the Autobot with a guarded expression and posture. "W-why do you say that?"

"Casual observations," replied Smokescreen, far too amused for Spike's liking. "So…how'd he con you into owing him?"

Spike considered. If he told them what happened, they would tell the others and the truth would get out. But Sideswipe already said he was going to tell…maybe if he confessed of his own volition they would have pity on him. That was if Sideswipe had not already spilled the preverbal beans. If he could beat the red Autobot to it then maybe…

"He's uh…kind of…blackmailing me," Spike replied. It came out a lot easier then he had expected.

Smokescreen's face did not change. "Oh?"

"Uh…yeah."

"And how's that?"

"Uh…well. You know how a few weeks ago he-er, I mean Sideswipe, said he was the one who…y'know... blew up Wheeljack's lab?" Smokescreen's face betrayed nothing but the smallest hint of curiosity. "Well…he didn't...actually…blow it up…"

Spike was suddenly aware of how quite the room was and looked up to see Ironhide standing there with his arms crossed, waiting for the boy to elaborate. From the expression on the Mech's face he already knew the answer and was merely waiting for confimation.

"Then who?" prompted Smokescreen.

Spike squirmed under the accusatory gazes and instinctively curled in on himself as he glanced between the two Mech nervously.

"…me."

Smokescreen's optic ridges rose in slight surprise and a smirk tugged at the edges of his mouth, while Ironhide did not appear so amused.

"How?" Smokescreen demanded with a laugh.

"It doesn't matter how," Ironhide said as he strode forward, not giving Spike a chance to answer for himself before he was scooped up into metal hands and carried out of the room like a sack of flour. Smokescreen did not follow.

* * *

The Mechs they passed in the halls sent them odd curious looks, but Ironhide ignored them and carried onward. Spike had a good idea of where he was being taken, but it did nothing to help ease his frazzled nerves. This wasn't going to end well, he was certain of it. He could hear the 'disappointed' lectures that were to come. And then there was Wheeljack. The inventor might even be angry with him. And of course there was Ratchet…

Maybe being Sideswipe's slave wasn't as bad as he previously thought…too late to back out, however.

Ironhide approached a very unassuming door and pressed the call button beside the frame. After a moment, the familiar voice of Optimus Prime spoke through the small speaker, "Enter."

Spike felt distinctly ill as the doors opened and Ironhide stepped through the threshold. Optimus Prime's office. He'd never been inside the commander's office, it was a place for officers and strategizing; not a place for teenagers. It made him feel all the more nervous.

Optimus sat behind a large desk, holographic projects rising from it's surface in a colorful display that thoroughly incomprehensible to Spike's young mind. Behind him stood Prowl, data pad in hand. It looked as though they were in the middle of something important when Ironhide pressed the call button, far more important then Spike's petty crime surely.

Optimus glanced curiously at Spike before addressing his old friend.

"Ironhide?" The Prime prompted tinted with the barest hint of concern.

"The kid has something he needs to tell ya, Prime." The Mech said before plopping Spike upon the desk top and right onto the holographic projections, strewing shadows across the ceiling. The boy shielded his eyes from the glare of the lights before Optimus kindly turned them off. Looking up, Spike met the expectant gazes of the Autobot commander and his second. Under it all, he had the inane thought that this was just like being sent to the Principal's office at school…only the Principal and Vice Principal were giant robots.

When he glanced over his shoulder at Ironhide, the surly Mech pitched his head forward. "Go on," he said. "Tell 'em."

Turning back to the other two, Spike swallowed hard. He found it far more difficult to speak then before. His mouth opened and closed uselessly in false starts.

"What is this about, Spike?" Optimus asked, arm resting upon the desk.

Spike bit his lip. "It's just…I," he began unsteadily. "Sideswipe…he…that is…uh…" It was odd how frightening three pairs of blue optics could seem. "Sideswipe lied," was what finally able to blurt.

There was a slight pause and then, "Elaborate."

"It wasn't him who blew up the lab," said the boy, guilt plastered across his face. "It was me…"

"You set off the explosion in Wheeljack's lab the other week?"

"…yeah," Spike said and all of a sudden it was as if a dam had been broken and everything spilled out at once. "But it was an accident, I swear! I didn't mean to do it; I mean I don't even know what I actually did to make it blow up like that. I just went in there to get some bolts to finish the arm Dad and I've been working on and I know I'm not supposed to go in there without an Autobot with me and stuff, but I didn't think it would be that big a deal and when I left the room the whole deal when super nova on me and I freaked! Sideswipe saw the whole thing and stole the security feed disk from the surveillance room and said if I didn't do everything he wanted he would give the disk to Red Alert. But I don't care anymore because that lunatic is driving me up the wall with ridiculous demands and getting me into more trouble that I was trying to avoid in the first place," Spike took a refueling breath. "I've never skipped school in my whole life!"

His defense rested, Spike waited in silence for a response but was baffled when Optimus began to chuckle. Prowl stood back, a small hint of a smile at the edge of his mouth. Spike looked over his shoulder and saw Ironhide was grinning.

…had he missed something?

* * *

Wheeljack entered the Medbay and spotted the very organic he had been searching for sitting on a work table and surrounded by filthy hydraulic calendars and coolant converters. A rag in one hand and scrubbing away fervently at the smudges and grease marring the part's pristine finishes, the young human had barley even made a dent in his work load. When the engineer stepped into the room, Spike glanced upwards, smiling nervously.

"Hey 'Jack…" Spike said, pausing in his polishing.

Wheeljack paused before the burdened table and picked up a converter. "So this is what Ratchet's having you do, huh?"

The human wilted a little. "Yeah. But it's OK. Could've been a lot worse…"

Laughing, Wheeljack sat the device back down. "That's very true. I think he probably thought you'd learned your lesson somewhat already. Can't imagine being under Side's beck and call was at all a pleasant experience."

"No," Spike replied flatly. "It certainly wasn't."

A pause.

"Hey Wheeljack?"

"Hm?"

"I'm sorry I blew your lab to smithereens."

Again, Wheeljack laughed. "While I hardly think you blew it anywhere near to smithereens, the notion is appreciated. I'm just happy you didn't get hurt."

"Did you know?"

"Know what?"

"That I did it and not Sideswipe."

"Nah," Wheeljack replied with a dismissive wave. "Only the officers knew. Except Ratchet and Red of course."

"Thank God for small favors…" Spike replied. "One thing I haven't figured out yet is how…"

"Prowl said he figured it out not too long after the incident. He said he found bolts scattered across the hall and a cardboard box, which only you or Sparkplug use. And Sparkplug was on the other side of the Ark at the time so…"

"Guess I'm a messy criminal, then huh?"

The Autobot chuckled with a slight nod. "I guess it does."

"Why didn't they bring it up sooner if they all knew?"

"I suppose they wanted to have you come to them of your own volition," said Wheeljack.

"It just kind of reminds me of an after school special. It's kind of weird," Spike stood up and stretched his back. "This is gonna take forever…say Wheeljack?"

"Hm?"

"You wouldn't be interested in helping any would you?"

"Sorry Spike, you're on your own there. Taking responsibility for your mistakes and learning from them is part of growing up. Something both you and Sideswipe could stand to learn."

And with that, Wheeljack left Spike to his task.

* * *

**_Author's Notes continued:_**

Awww! How quaint. Everything learned a valuable lesson and the equilibrium of the universe has been restored. I wonder what happened to Sideswipe once the cat was let out of the bag. Hm... *strokes nonexistent beard*

Please leave a review. I like reviews. =D


	6. Chapter 4 part 1

**Author's Notes: **This chapter's been in the works for a while and for the longest time I couldn't find the flow I wanted and I was having trouble writing the end. This is another two part chapter so expect the following half along in a short time. Thank you all for your patience and please enjoy.

* * *

Chapter Five: Up a Creek Part I

He could not remember how it was exactly that he came to be running frantically through a heavily wooded area. It seemed far too quite for anything to be amiss, but then he felt a warm liquid drip down the side of his face. A gash had split apart his left eyebrow from where warm sticky blood now oozed. He could not recall where or why he had been hurt, but his heart was pumping frantically like the wings of a panicked bird. He knew nothing but the perpetual sense to run, to keep moving, to escape…but from what he was not sure.

* * *

THREE HOURS EARLIER

The Ark was peacefully quiet as the residents went about their daily tasks and duties.

The soft, but audible sound of padding feet caught Bumblebee's attention as he and Beachcomber were readying that morning's reports for Prowl's approval. Curious, Bumblebee looked towards the door to the command center just as a small form came barreling into the room. Spike ran straight towards the two Minibots and without explanation dived behind them, taking cover behind their legs.

"Whoa there mini-man, chill out a sec. Now what's gotch'yall up in a hissy?" Beachcomber asked. Bumblebee glanced down at the winded boy in bewilderment.

"Yeah, what's with the freak out…?"

"I didn't do anything!" Spike insisted peculiarly, peeking out from behind his friend's leg to send a nervous glance towards the door from which he had come. "It was an accident and now he's trying to kill me! I swear it was an accident! Tell him!"

"Tell who what? Who's trying to kill you?" Bumblebee asked, well aware by now of his young human friend's tendency to overreact in most situations. He was not at all worried that there was anyone actually trying to kill him.

"Sunstreaker!" Spike replied. Oh, well that made a little more sense…

Beachcomber laughed. "Ah, now don't let that overgrown daffodil scare ya little dude. He's just stuck on a real bad negative vibe, that's all." Beachcomber paused as if a thought suddenly struck him and he shrugged. "Well, more like a _perpetual_ negative vibe…"

"Yeah," Bumblebee laughed along with Beachcomber. "'Streaker might be a mean slagger, but he'd never try and kill you. I mean, he's no Decepticon-"

"I'M GOING TO KILL THAT LITTLE SLAGGING MEAT-WAD!" The roar of an enraged Mech thundered through the room as an ominous yellow form stomped into their vicinity. Well…partially yellow. The good half of the melee warrior's left side, shoulder, head, and arm, was covered in splattered red paint. Droplets of the liquid fell to the ground in his wake as he tromped forward into the room, giving the alarming impression of dripping blood. Both Minibots were stunned speechless at the sight of the Mech and Spike ducked behind them with a startled 'meep!'.

"Sunstreaker!" exclaimed Bumblebee, incredulous. "What the slag happened to-"

"WHERE IS HE?!" The yellow Mech demanded. From behind Bumblebee's leg, Spike let out a pathetic little whimper. Bumblebee didn't blame Spike in the least. Sunstreaker was intimidating in his best of moods. However, he could not help but find a small amount of amusement in the situation. Bumblebee stepped forward to meet the angry Autobot, his hands up in a placating gesture.

"Now Sunstreaker, just calm down and…" However, as Bumblebee did so, he effectively revealed Spike and Sunstreaker's blazing optics zeroed in on the organic. The situation lost all humor as the mini Autobot's amusement turned to real concern.

"YOU!" Sunstreaker bellowed before lurching forward, knocking Bumblebee clear off his feet. With a panicked squeak, the human made a mad dash for the other end of the room, Sunstreaker hot in pursuit.

"Sunstreaker!" Beachcomber called out as he tried to block him from reaching the fleeing boy. "Leave the little dude alone…"

Just then, the doors on the other end of the room opened and in entered Optimus Prime, Ironhide, and Cliffjumper. All three Mechs paused to behold the absurd scene in which they happened upon. Beachcomber had latched himself onto Sunstreaker's right arm and Bumblebee the left, both Minibots trying to keep him from reaching Spike who was kneeling behind one of the computer consoles.

Upon seeing Optimus Prime, Spike ran towards them and dived behind the protective bulk of the Autobot commander.

"What is the meaning of this?" Optimus Prime demanded, stepping forward, his voice ringing with authority.

Sunstreaker lessened his struggling against the Minibots long enough to answer. "That little slagger dumped paint on me!"

"It was an accident!" Spike asserted from behind Optimus Prime.

"I DON'T GIVE A SLAG WHAT YOU CALL IT, YOU'RE STILL DEAD!" Sunstreaker broke free of his captors and lunged towards the organic's hidey hole. With a startled yelp, Spike bolted. Sunstreaker was hot on his heels and several other Autobots right behind Sunstreaker.

Just then, Ratchet ran into the room looking as furious as he'd ever been. "WHAT THE FRAG DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!"

So much for the Ark remaining quite and peaceful.

Behind the Medic hobbled in Sideswipe, sporting fresh repairs and still wet paint. "Calm down bro! It's just paint!" As he passed by, Optimus reached out and grabbed a hold of Sunstreaker and slammed the Mech to the ground.

"AH! Let me go!" With both his armor and pride dented, Sunstreaker was all the more riled up to resist. Spike ran back to Ironhide and Cliffjumper. Both Mechs stood in front of the boy, ready to stop Sunstreaker should he break free of Prime and make another lunge. Optimus ceased the yellow Mech's struggles by slamming his knee into Sunstreaker's back, keeping a firm hold his shoulder and arm. "Control yourself Sunstreaker or you'll find yourself shackled and locked in the brig for an entire orn! This behavior is entirely inappropriate for an Autobot soldier!"

The threat seemed to bring Sunstreaker out of his raging stupor a little and lessened his struggles somewhat and simply fumed silently under his commander's knee. Ratchet then marched up beside them and bent down to give the yellow warrior a swift punch to the head.

"_You maniac_!" The medic snarled. "What in Primus' name's in _wrong_ with your circuits?!" Sunstreaker merely growled in response.

"Leave Sunny alone!" Sideswipe barked, the only Mech apparently on Sunstreaker's side. "It's not his fault! He's just stressed out! He can't control himself when gets into these moods!"

Ratchet sent the red Mech a decisively menacing glare. "I think I know the different between stress and psychosis, Sideswipe!" His expression abruptly turned blank with confusion before realizing his patient was walking around. "GET YOUR AFT BACK TO THE BAY! I'M NOT DONE PATCHING IT BACK TOGETHER! And you're dripping _paint everywhere_!"

"Actually I think that was Sunstreaker," was Bumblebee's paltry excuse. "I got some of it on me too…"

Indeed, both Bumblebee and Beachcomber as well as Prime all sported some sort of red paint smeared on their frame from having done battle with a paint dripping Sunstreaker, although it was not quite as obvious as on the others.

"Regardless, get back to the Medbay before I shoot you," Ratchet snapped and positively glared Sideswipe into retreating and the Autobot feebly hobbled away, mumbling as he did so. The medic then turned his attention to the room around him, glancing around in irritation. "Now where's the scraplet?"

Timidly, Spike peeked around the bulk of Cliffjumper's frame. "Here." he said, heart still hammering in his chest.

"Still in one piece then?"

"Yeah…" Seeming to decide he was safe from any Sunstreaker induced pain, Spike stepped away from Cliffjumper and sent him a grateful smile. The red Minibot returned the gesture. Cliffjumper wasn't so bad, Spike came to realize. Despite the rough patches in the beginning, once things settled down to a routine of sorts, Cliffjumper turned out to be a pretty nice guy. If not short tempered. Then again, half the Ark's residents seemed to have equally short tempers.

"Good," Ratchet replied as he turned his piercing gaze to Sunstreaker, but continued to speak to Spike. "Thank whatever God you subscribe to that he or she gave you unusually fast feet."

Bumblebee made his way over to Spike to check on him as Beachcomber went to stand near Prime. Ironhide, still grimfaced about the whole ordeal, took a moment to huff a laugh. "True that. I wish half our guys could move as fast."

Spike was not amused. It had truly been an accident. Sideswipe was still in the process of being put back together after he and Sunstreaker had a run in with Dirge and Thrust that went sour very quickly. Whenever Sideswipe was in the Medbay, Sunstreaker was sure to be near by, as a general rule of thumb. With Spike and his father Sparkplug still heavily deep in their training, they too were regular presences in the Medbay. With so many people taking up valuable pace within what he considered his personal sanctuary, Ratchet was in a bit of a mood.

Painting on a new coat of paint over the freshly repaired arms of Sideswipe, Ratchet had a large canister of bright red paint sitting next to him. Spike had not really been paying them much attention. His Dad had gone to see Wheeljack to ask him about the proper way to replace a cosmotron, leaving Spike alone with a half completed Mech made of a hodgepodge of spare Autobot parts. Having the average attention span of a boy his age, Spike grew bored sitting alone on the table, the faint sound of repairs hissing in the background. He then tried to take the broken cosmotron out of the half finished chest cavity, but something inside the chest snapped and the cosmotron flew out of the cavity as if propelled into the air by springs and sailed across the room where it smashed into the paint canister and splattered bright crimson paint all over Sunstreaker.

And then all Hell had broken loose…

Spike looked up at Ironhide. "You try having a 'Bot ten times larger and a million times heavier then you on your ass and see how fast you run," he said. "I've got six million years of evolutionary knowledge on survival built into me and it tells me to haul ass whenever that happens. Which has become more of an occurrence as of late…"

"Oh contraire, Spike," Cliffjumper added. "I've had Devastator half way up my tail pipe and I could still out run that lug with one leg!" The room stilled for the barest of moments, long enough to send glances that range from skeptical to incredulous towards the red Mech. He simply ignored them.

"Ironhide," Optimus ordered as he helped a now somewhat complacent Sunstreaker to his feet, "Escort Sunstreaker to the brig for some cool down time. And find some solvent to get him cleaned up."

As Ironhide reached out to take a hold of Sunstreaker's arm, the room was filled with a blaring siren emanating from Teletaan I. The semi-sentient computer's monotone voice called out an ominous message.

"Decepticon activity detected. Decepticon activity detected." Sunstreaker was completely forgotten as all bodies, Spike included, marched towards the computer. A map popped up on the screen. Optimus took control. "Teletraan I, can you verify the coordinates and confirm Decepticon presence?"

"Coordinates 45.57685,-122.120132. Rockwell Dam, Mt. Hood National Forrest."

"Can you give me a visual?"

"Visual confirmation now," replied the computer. The map blinked away to be replaced by the view of a large concrete Dam, its bulk obstructing the flow of the river and creating a large reservoir of water behind it. A thick blanket of trees surrounded the immediate area and for miles around. At first glance nothing appeared amiss, but then smoke and flashes of light could be seen around various parts the Dam and the forms of several large beings converging upon the structure. The Decepticons were wasting no time in their assault on the Dam, destroying any communication capabilities and sending the poor human workers fleeing for their lives. It was all Optimus needed. Turning to those around him, he began issuing orders.

"Teletraan, send out the alarm and have every able bodied Mech line up at the entrance, battle ready. Ratchet, prepare the Medbay," Prime turned to Ironhide who had been in the process of taking Sunstreaker to the brig. "Belay that last order Ironhide. Sunstreaker will be coming along. We'll need him."

The alarm sounded as everyone began to move. Sparkplug entered the room with Hound and Jazz and made his way over to his son. They both stayed back to be out of the way as Autobot rushed about the room to prepare and not wanting to fall victim to inattentive feet. Optimus Prime approached the two humans and bent down to one knee.

"Sparkplug, Spike," the Autobot commander said. "I would greatly appreciate if you would accompany us. We may require your assistance in evacuating the human workers from the area."

"You got it Prime," Sparkplug replied, a determined look in his eyes. Sparkplug was ex-military and if there was one thing that sent his blood to boil was seeing his own people being attacked. On native soil. Preparation was conducted swiftly and as efficiently as one would expect from a team of Autobots comprised predominantly of scientists, engineers, and a handful of melee warriors. Sparkplug and Spike hitched a ride with Bumblebee. With everyone briefed on the situation and in formation, the order to roll out was given.

"Autobots," Optimus Prime's voice range out over the heads of the idling cars and trucks, "Roll out!"

* * *

The drive took more or less the good part of an hour during which Prowl informed everyone of their strategy and their individual parts. Sparkplug, Spike, and Bumblebee would locate and evacuate the workers, with injured or wounded taking priority. Their first sign of trouble happened well before they reached the Dam. The entrance to Mt. Hood National Park was clogged with emergency and police vehicles and personnel. Upon seeing the convoy of Autobots heading their way, many of the paramedics retreated to allow them passage, but one police officer stood alone in the road. Optimus was forced to brake and stop.

"Please allow us passage, we must get to the Dam before…"

"I will do no such thing. I'm not letting anymore of you damned machines cause any more damage," The policeman was in his mid thirties, dark brown hair, and placed his hand on the butt of his gun in warning like a feral cat bending its ears back. "So you can go back to wherever it is you came from and let us handle this!"

Ironhide revved his engine menacingly. "Why you no good, dirty varmint! I ought'a…"

Ironhide broke off as Sparkplug rounded his back bumper and approached the police officer. The older man's shoulders were squared, stride long and stiff, and held his expression in a scowl; a far cry from the easy going human the Autobots were more accustom to.

"Is there a problem here, sir?" Sparkplug demanded. "We need to get through this pass to get to those workers."

"I'm not letting you or your metal friends through," the police officer spat, in clear disgust. He glared at Sparkplug, sizing him up and apparently concluding the older human was no threat. "You can beat it and let us handle it. We don't need any traitors around to-ugh!"

The officer didn't have time to finish his sentence before Sparkplug slugged him in the jaw. He tumbled backwards against his cruiser with a thud. Mouth dripping with blood, the officer scrambled to his feet and pulled out his gun, barrel aimed at Sparkplug. Several engines revved fervently and Ironhide transformed, pulling out his own firearm. "Try it, pip-squeak and just see if you last a nano-second before I blast you a new exhaust port."

The paramedics and park rangers, who were simple bystanders, decided it would be a good idea to step back.

"Assaulting an officer!" The man, clearly shaken, stammered in a broken voice. "That's a serious offense!"

"Stand down Ironhide!" Optimus barked. For a moment it looked as though the old warrior might disobey Prime's order, but reluctantly sub-spaced his weapon and stood there looking threateningly at the small man who was the cause of their grief.

The officer then turned back to Sparkplug. "I can lock you up for this!"

Sparkplug stepped right up to the man, ignoring the pistol completely and looked his square in the eye. "Put that pee-shooter away private! If there's one thing I can't stand, it's some no good snot nosed brat brandishing a gun in the name of the law and calling himself a patriot! I was in Korea! Vietnam! GERMANY! I fought for this country most of my life, I had friends-GOOD friends- who gave their mother fucking LIVES so you could play hero in Oregon suburbia and you better let us through or I might just have one of my buddies over here bust you open. After all there's only so much insult a guy can take before he throws protocol out the window."

As if it had been rehearsed, several of the closest Autobots transformed to enhance their friends point. They looked down at the police officer, sending menacing glares as they cracked their knuckles and grinned evilly. The man's gusto deflated and he visibly paled. With one last glare at Sparkplug, the officer retreated.

"Thank you," Sparkplug said, almost cheerfully, and walked back to join Bumblebee and his son. Several Autobots muttered their approval as he passed by them. Spike, who had been hanging out Bumblebee's window to watch the spectacle, goggled at his father as he slid back into the little yellow Autobot. The convoy moved ahead without further delay.

"Uh…Dad?" Spike asked.

"Yes son?"

"You were never in Germany…"

"I know that," Sparkplug replied and sent his son a devious grin. "But he doesn't. He'll probably figure it out in about…oh, about fifteen minutes."

Bumblebee laughed and accelerated to catch up with the others.

* * *

It had all gone wrong from the very start.

He could not remember how it was exactly that he came to be running frantically through a heavily wooded area. He remembered…yellow. Bumblebee. The Dam. Optimus Prime. He told them to help the other humans… The Decepticons were fast…people were hurt. Badly. He lost sight of his Dad.

Megatron… Bright bursts of light and heat. Incredible heat. Screams…

Run.

Bumblebee said to run. He ran. He was still running…and then the sounds of battle filtered back to him. Shouts and screams, explosions, metal grinding and twisting. The roar of a monster. The heavy foot steps of his pursuers…

Spike's feet grounded to a halt, pushing up dirt, as the ground dropped away into a sheer drop of a cliff, the white water below howling to the gray sky above. His breath was panicked and deeply hoarse. The chill in the air was like shards of ice in his lungs, stabbing with each heavy breath. There was no where to go but to the left, back towards the dam, or the right, further into the woodland area. Without granting it much thought, Spike turned right. As he approached a bend in the cliff, something leaped from within the confines of the woods, throwing him to the ground and nearly over the side. Spike cried out as something heavy and metal landed on his chest, knocking the wind out of him. Grasping for precious air, he was able to regain focus long enough to identify his attacker: Rumble.

The small Decepticon stood over him, one large metal food firmly planted atop Spike's rib cage.

"Well, well," said the Decepticon, an oily grin spreading across his face. "We just keep running into each other don't we, meat-wad?"

Memories flashed through Spike mind of an oil rig on fire. Men were screaming as they died, the crunch of bodies trampled beneath massive metal feet. The blazing red eyes of colossal metal demons…

Spike squirmed beneath Rumble's foot but cried out in agony as the foot abruptly pressed down. Pain radiated throughout his chest and his lungs gasps desperately to fill themselves with air. Spike screamed, not realizing consciously that he had. There was just pain and the red blazing eyes of a metal demon…

A bolt of red light struck Rumble in the head, knocking him over.

Spike gasped and sucked in a lungful of air, the relief of breathing being overshadowed by the pain coming from his ribs. As soon as he had the frame of mind to, Spike scampered away. The yellow and green forms of Sunstreaker and Hound came barreling through the trees, shooting at the smaller Decepticon who leapt away from the assault. Sunstreaker's armor was still splattered red…

"Get away from him, Rumble!" Hound yelled, firing his weapon. Once the Decepticon cassette had fallen back a ways, Hound made his way over to Spike, kneeling in front of the boy to offer some sort of shelter from the battle.

Rumble tried to hide his frame behind a grove of trees as Sunstreaker sent blast after blast towards the smaller Mech. A great black blur burst from somewhere to his left, slashing and gnawing at his armor. The weapon was knocked from his hand and it skidded across the dirt and over the cliff side. With a roar, Sunstreaker grabbed a hold of Ravage's body and tore the Decepticon away from him, flinging the panther like machine over the cliff as well. Sunstreaker staggered to a stand, his abdomen sported a large gash and fresh Energon oozed from the ghastly wound. His face and shoulders were also scratched up and a few were bleeding as well.

There was a moment of eerie silence. But it did not stay that way.

From behind Hound, Spike was the first to spot him. All he could do was cry out and point as Soundwave dropped from the sky and tackled Sunstreaker into the earth. The two Mechs collided into one another with a brutal crash. Seeing his teammate in very real danger, Hound leapt back to his feet and joined the melee unfolding there. Spike could do nothing but watch as Hound tried to pry Soundwave off of a barely conscious Sunstreaker. But he could do nothing but watch.

The thought to go and find one of the other Autobots to help crossed his mind, but was cut short when a hand, cold and metal reached around to grab his neck and _squeezed_. Spike's scream was cut short as Rumble lifted him off the ground and tiny spots of lights danced across his line of vision. His ears were ringing loudly against the back drop thumping of his rapidly beating heart.

"Stand down Auto-bolts!" Rumble yelled over the din. Soundwave had tossed the unresponsive Sunstreaker aside and was now trying to subdue Hound in a similar fashion. However, seeing the young human dangling from Rumble's grip, Hound immediately stayed. Spike couldn't breath. It was getting harder and harder to struggle against the vice grip on his windpipe. "That's right," he heard Rumble say. "One wrong move and the squishy goes squish."

Rumble swung Spike over so that he dangled over the edge of the cliff.

Hound stayed perfectly still, his processor working over time to find a way out of their current predicament. However, before he could even dare think of acting upon them, Sunstreaker rose from where he lay and dived into Soundwave, wrapping his arms around the Mech's middle and bringing him down. Hound moved forward towards Rumble, weapon raised…

The pressure on Spike's throat disappeared and he plummeted downward. The rush of air around him sent his mind abuzz with fright. His mind raced and flashes of his childhood appeared before his eyes.

His sixth birthday party when he got his first bicycle. His first day of school. His Mother's funeral…

Spike heard his name and opened his eyes which had been clenched shut. Hound was falling downward with him, arms outstretched, above rocks and bodies he could not identify were plummeting along with them. Pure instinct took over. Spike reached out as the sound of raging white water rose up to meet them.


	7. Chapter 4 part 2

Author's notes: Wow this chapter is turning out to be a lot longer then I initially thought. I had wanted to post this sooner but with Christmas and work I didn't have as much time to work on it as I wanted. But it's getting done. Hope you all enjoy and please review!

* * *

Chapter Five: Up a Creek Part II

* * *

The world was gone and he did not know where he or it was.

He could not breathe, could not think. His entire world was black and it was suffocating. And then, without warning or provocation, the world reignited with a bright intensity and was abruptly doused with water. Cold and sharp, it stung his eyes and flushed his mouth, ears, and nose. He panicked and flailed his arms, desperate to reach the surface to breathe. Something hard swept up from underneath him and pulled him from the water sputtering and coughing. He could hear the sound of rushing water over the hum of an engine. Large hands cradled his battered and bruised little body and carried him from the river, dripping wet.

"Spike?" Asked a familiar voice, attentive, worried. "Spike? Answer me, son! Can you hear me?" Bleakly, Spike opened his eyes and saw the worried face of Hound staring down at him. Almost immediately, the worry drained from the scouts face. Memory washed over the boy and a sense of amazement filled his mind. He'd been dropped off a cliff…and somehow he was alive. Amazement gave way to dread and a deep sickening feeling that came with the sudden realization of something unpleasant.

Carefully, Hound laid Spike onto the riverbank.

"Thank Primus," he said, sitting down. "I wasn't sure if that would work." An uneasy pause. "Just be sure not to tell Ratchet I did that..."

A wave of nausea hit him like a brick wall and Spike turned onto his side and retched. After a few moments of dry heaving, Spike managed to calm his quivering stomach. His temples throbbed with a sudden headache. Hound's optics were locked on him, concern still there. Spike ignored the Autobot and looked around himself, coughing the last of the water from his lungs. His chest felt alarmingly tender and throbbed with a dull pain. It spiked whenever he moved and he only hoped he had not broken anything. His mind was still trying to fully comprehend what had just happened.

"Shit," Spike spat and pressed a wet hand to his forehead. He was then aware of how brutally cold he was. Ever bit of him was soaked to the bone and while the chill seemed to be lifting somewhat, it still made Spike feel all the more frozen.

"Are you alright?" Hound asked, a sense of urgency in his tone. Spike was weak and cold, shivering from not only the water, but also after having just purged his systems, quite messily upon the river bank.

"Wha…how…how am I…not dead?" Spike asked, a vague tremble to his voice. Hound looked down at the boy with pity.

"I dived after you when you fell. I knew you couldn't survive a fall like that, but I could. But…uh," He seemed hesitant to go on. "I could only think of one way to land safely without you shattering on me, so I…uh, well I sub-spaced you on the way down. Just for a bit, though."

Spike didn't understand at first. "You…what? You did…what?" He asked wide eyed and feeling nauseous all over again. "How did…how'd you know it wouldn't…y'know. Kill me?"

"I didn't," Hound said honestly, appearing entirely sorry for the distress Spike was experiencing. "But you made it okay. Save for that..." He nodded to the mess next to the boy.

There was no real answer he could think to give, so Spike simply sat there for a few moments in silence and allowed his mind time to wrap around the fact that he was the firs person to ever be sub-spaced. He hadn't decided if he was excited or horrified about it.

"The river took us a ways down from where we fell," Hound said aloud. "My communications uplink isn't working, nothing but static. The fall must've damaged it."

"Do you know where we are?" Spike asked, wondering if he should take off his wet clothes. In this chilly weather, he wasn't sure which would do him more ill; wet and cold or naked and cold. Maybe he could light a fire. Hound could light it with his gun…

"We're a few miles from the Dam," Hound explained, getting to his feet and looking back down at the human. "We can walk back."

* * *

It was only five minutes into their walk upstream when it became apparent Spike did not have the strength to continue on under his own power with the side effects of having been sub-spaced still working through his system. Hound offered the boy a place on his shoulder, in between his helmet and holographic projector.

"Just give me a warning if you feel the urge to purge again, OK?" Hound asked with a playful smile. Spike appreciated the small attempt at humor to lighten the situation.

Although he knew it was unhealthy to do so, Spike dwelled on what had happened, his mind heavy with congealing thoughts. He could have died. So easily. He could have died. And then what? He could not imagine his Father being able to bear such a loss. Not after loosing his wife. He would be all alone. Spike felt an urgent need to get back to his Dad, to tell him he was all right.

As strong as the front William 'Sparkplug' Witwicky showed to the world, he was a kind hearted, sentimental man who had seen and experienced things that only a select few had. All through his childhood, his Father instilled in Spike a sense of duty, obligation, and pride. Things that made a good soldier. But after his Mother's passing, Sparkplug changed. He became protective and insecure. He went out of his way to make sure that whatever happened, Spike would be taken care of.

And then the Decepticons attacked the oil rig. Spike had been there as part of a school Co-op program, learning the ins and outs of the American oil rig worker. After the attack and he and his Father had been pulled from the ocean waters, the old Sparkplug emerged once again; proud and patriotic and determined. He'd nearly begged Optimus Prime to allow him and his son to help them in any way they could.

Spike still did not understand exactly why Optimus ever agreed, but did not deny for an instant that he was not grateful. Being around the Autobots seemed to give him a higher purpose, a feeling that he was doing something good for the world. Something tangible.

Spike was brought out of his thoughts when Hound suddenly stopped, engine revving. Alarmed, Spike looked around for any sign of an enemy. At first he did not see anything and then a flash of yellow caught his eyes and he glanced down towards the river bank. The golden body of an Autobot lay in the shallow end of the river, wedged between two rocks. Spike's heart skipped a beat.

"Sunstreaker!" Hound called, but the Autobot did not stir. Without a word, Hound carefully removed Spike from his shoulder and placed him on the ground. Hound trudged straight into the river towards the fallen Autobot. Spike approached reluctantly, compelled by a morbid curiosity and yet stilled by a sense of dread. Hound pushed Sunstreaker into a sitting position and began to examine him for signs of life.

"Is he…?" Spike hesitated to finish his sentence, the last word echoing inside his head. Hound bent over the body and began examining the area around his chest armor, seeming to look for something unknown to Spike.

"No," Hound replied, a sense of relief in his voice, and all the tension seeped from the air like helium from a balloon. "His Spark's still intact. He's just in stasis lock. But those 'Cons sure did a number on him. Ratchet's not gonna be a happy Medic when he sees the shape he's in."

The smaller green Mech pulled Sunstreaker's form from the water, hoisted him partially over one shoulder, and dragged him to shore, mud and muck and decaying forest bottom clogging and caking to the legs of the immobile giant. Laying him against the trunk of a sturdy looking tree, Hound looked to see what repairs he could do then and there, perhaps even get him conscious.

Spike sat himself on a large tree root a mild distance away to allow Hound the space he needed. At this point in the game, Spike was confident he knew Sunstreaker well enough to know that when he was injured, he was dangerous. He was certainly injured now, although first impression was that even if he wished it, the yellow melee warrior did not have the physical capabilities to lash out at anything. But Spike was not about to chance it. Inanely, he noticed that all the red paint had been washed away by the current.

The thought of water made him realize all the more how horribly cold he was.

He grabbed at his sleeves and tried wringing them out. His arms were covered in goose bumps and Spike wished for nothing more then a scalding cup of hot chocolate. And a blanket fresh from the dryer. A snap and an odd grinding noise snapped Spike from his own thoughts just in time to see Sunstreaker's optics brighten and then dim slightly. He was conscious, but obviously struggling to remain so.

"F…ffff..fffraaaaaaguh…" Sunstreaker's head tilted lazily to one side as if he had no strength to keep it up right. "Whah th' fragh…h'pn t'me…"

His words were slurred horribly and Hound looked grim. "You got hit by a mountain basically. After Soundwave got in a few shots…"

Sunstreaker groaned and shifted an arm which squeaked. "..luh…key shots…th'slagger…"

"This might seem like a stupid things to ask but are your communications still operational?"

"…can't access any of m' systems…"

Hound sighed forlornly. "It was worth asking."

It was quiet for a while before Hound stood up and glanced over his shoulder to where Spike was huddled on a tree root, trying to rub some feeling back into his limbs. "Spike? I need you to stay here with Sunstreaker. I'm gonna head forward the rest of the way and try to find help. It shouldn't be very much further."

"What?" Spike replied with alarm. "You want me to stay out here by myself?"

"No, Sunstreaker will be here. I just need someone here to watch him. Make sure he doesn't offline. Ratchet's done good teaching you some stuff, you can handle it. And no offense, but I can make it back in better time if I go on alone."

"But I don't even have any tools!" Spike protested. It wasn't merely that he did not have any equipment to repair Sunstreaker, it was that he was very cold, sore, still feeling the effects of shock, and wanted nothing more then to get out of these God forsaken woodlands. As well as that oh so important fact that he really did not feel confident enough to be held responsible for the life of another individual. Even more so if that individual was Sunstreaker.

"I have some tools with me you can use if that helps any." Hound began pulling out various tools and objects from his sub-space pocket, laying the array across the dirt in a line, most of which Spike did not even know the name of and even fewer of which he knew the use. "Just keep him alive till I come back with help, alright?"

Mind protesting and giving excellent and very valid points as to why it was certainly _not_ alright, Spike agreed anyway and watched solemnly as Hound wandered off in search of their comrades. As he watched the Autobot move further away, he suddenly regressed into his four year old self, watching his mother drive away from his school for the first time.

Despite Sunstreaker's presence, he felt very much alone.

* * *

If life was organized into categories of cliché morals and tests, Spike supposed that his current situation qualified as jumping into the proverbial deep end; the sink or swim test. When Hound had left him, Spike felt too alarmed to even touch any of the tools the Autobot had laid out for him. Sunstreaker did not seem to be aware of anything, let alone Spike, and his optics dimmed periodically and wandered around as if trying to remember where he might have left a personal effect of some sort. It began to drizzle a little, making Spike all the more miserable.

He searched the immediate area for sticks and brush, but everything was wet. Amongst the tools was a welding torch, so he could always torch some twigs until they burst into flames. As he made a sad little pile of assorted twigs and brush and dead leaves, Spike became aware that Sunstreaker was watching him.

"Wha're ya doin'…?" Despite being beaten to a pulp and even having difficulty forming coherent words, Sunstreaker's characteristic ire shone through flawlessly. Even on the brink of death, Sunstreaker could still hold onto himself just enough to be a jerk.

Spike scowled as he reached for the torch. "Making a fire. I'm cold and really not interested in dieing of hypothermia."

A noise like that of scrapping of metal and rasping emitted from the Autobot in reply. "Yur'as stup'd as ya look then…th' 'Cons'll see th' smoke."

Spike hadn't thought of that, but he had a ready retort. "If the 'Cons can see it, so can the Autobots."

"Th' 'Cons'll get here first…" Spike bit down on his rising irritation. He was cold, hungry, and very much not appreciative of his 'patient's' attitude. "They always do…"

"Well then I guess we're doomed," the boy replied curtly. He began to torch the sad little pile, the promise of warmth and dry clothes fueling him, but after a few moments of trying it became apparent that nothing there was capable of holding a flame and Spike cursed under his breath, his mood dropping like a rock. His hopeful little bubble had popped and anger and irritation and the fitful urge to go home swelled up inside him. He didn't want to be there, he wanted to go home, he wanted to change clothes, to sit dangerously close to the radiator until he was well done and crispy! He wanted something hot to drink and to watch television until he passed out from lack of physical activity!

He wanted his Dad.

The urge to kick and scream and break anything within the vicinity rose up. It was a childish reaction and, somewhere, Spike was aware of this, but just this once he wanted to indulge in it. He didn't want to compose himself and think clearly. He wanted to break something. Preferably something worth a lot of money.

With a snarl, he threw the useless torch across the way in frustration and yelled, walked away stiffly, breathing heavily through his nostrils. He paused, seemed to think better of it and turned back to reclaim the torch, but upon seeing it laying on the damp earth, Spike was reminded of his ire and became all the more enraged. He kicked at the mud earth and sent sticks hurling into the air. He turned around again with a huff and found a rock, a good sized one, and picked it up. With as much strength as he had, he chucked the accursed thing into the woods where after a short silence made a satisfying crack that echoed through the trees and underbrush.

He stood there in silence, breathing a little heavier, and feeling partially placated.

"Wha' good'd tha'do?" Sunstreaker's voiced asked through the empty air. "Y'finally lost yur' mind?"

Spike ignored the Mech, suddenly feeling very weak. With all his ire dispelled, for the moment at least, his body had nothing to run on. He found a not-so-sopping wet spot on the ground and sat down with an inglorious _plop_. He could feel Sunstreaker's eyes on him, but he ignored them. Spike listened to his own breathing for a long while, allowing the sound and sensation of life to calm his thoughts and give him a moment to think logically. Hound had left to find the others and there was no telling how long that could be before they returned. Sunstreaker was in bad shape, but he was coherent which was good. All there seemed to do was to sit and wait.

"How long do you think it'll take them to find us?"

There was no answer and Spike looked up to see the Mech's optics had gone dark. Feeling the barest hint of disquiet, he stood and approached the yellow Mech. He called his name a few more times, but still there was no answer. Standing so close, Spike got a better view of the damage. It was quite extensive. Without giving it much thought, Spike got up close and climbed atop the Mech's leg to get a better look at his chest. All the important things seemed to be intact for the most part, but supportive devices and lines were shattered and ripped and torn. How he managed to remain conscious at all was quite a feet.

With nothing much else to do but wait and stew in the cold and silent woods, Spike rounded up the tools Hound had left him and began to tinker around with the melee warrior's insides, repairing what he could and patching up anything that needed to be patched.

Working on Sunstreaker seem to warm him up some. The simple act of moving about helped also. Excess heat radiating from Sunstreaker's inner systems sent plumes of warm steam rising off the metal and into the air. It wasn't a fire, but it was enough to keep Spike from going numb. He wasn't shivering as much as he had been and mercifully he even noticed his clothes were beginning to dry somewhat. They were still damp, but no where dear the degree they had been when Hound left them.

Speaking of Hound, by Spike's reasoning, he should have been back by now, surely? How far had he said they were all washed down stream? It must have been far for it to be taking this long for him to return.

As he bent down to the said for the blow torch he had left setting on Sunstreaker's outstretched leg, a noise disturbed the prevalent silence and a bolt of light zoomed over his head accompanied by a searing heat. Startled, Spike fell from his perch and into a heap on the ground where he stayed and cautiously, looked under the bend in Sunstreaker's leg. A purple shape emerged from the underbrush brandishing a silver blaster that looked all the more menacing in the faded light of the woods. The Decepticon walked forward into the clearing, almost causally so and slowly made his way closer and closer to Sunstreaker and Spike.

"Well, well, imagine my luck," said an all too recognizable voice. Spike's entire body stiffened as the figure approached. Rumble. "Who'da thought I'd find old Gold bumper out here all alone and vulnerable, eh? I got a gear to pick with you pixy stick…"

Spike felt frozen to the spot, wracking his brain for any possible solution but his labors bore no fruit. Fear and the rush of adrenaline played a sick game of tug of war on his brain. The steps were coming closer and his small window to choose was rapidly closing. Twigs snapped under metal feet. And before Spike was even aware of what was going on, something grabbed a hold of his jacket and heaved him up. With a cry, Spike was hauled up and over Sunstreaker's leg and dangled from Rumble's grip. The Con's mouth spread into an oily grin that made the pit of Spike's stomach quiver with dread.

"And better yet," Rumble continued, "I caught myself one of the Auto-bolts' pets too!" The boy struggled, kicked and flung his legs around wildly to get himself free of Rumble but the Decepticon's grip would not give. Cold metal presses against his left temple and all resistance deflated like a balloon. "I think I'll start with you…"

There was no time for Spike to even begin pondering his mortality before there was a rush of air and then the world was swept up from underneath him with a resounding crash. His chest screamed in protest as he felt himself fall away and gave the soil a nice kiss. Dazed and confused, he pulled himself up from the dirt to see Rumble tumbling away to a stop further away into the shallow bank of the river and a quick look over is shoulder revealed Sunstreaker, battered and falling apart, slowly rising to his feet. His knees buckled under his own weight and he barely managed to stand before slowly pulling a blaster from subspace. His blue optics focused squarely on the recovering Decepticon. Without even making eye contact, Sunstreaker gave Spike an order. "Run," said the Autobot.

Spike balked. "What?"

"I said RUN!"

Startled into compliance, Spike scrambled away towards the refuge of the cluttered trees, climbing up the steep embankment and into the forest. His retreat was then overcome by the resounding blast of a discharging weapon. Stumbling over root and rock as he went, Spike's goal was to get as far away from the epicenter as possible. His chest was burning horribly and he couldn't quite catch his breath and was forced to stop. Leaning against a tree for a moment, Spike heaved in gulps of cold air. As he stood there a sickening thought encroached upon his mind.

Sunstreaker was badly damaged and even against a smaller opponent such as Rumble there was a definite chance the melee warrior could die. Sideswipe appeared in his mind and from within him there was a sudden rush of guilt. He couldn't abandon Sunstreaker to die knowing he had a brother back at base. But what could he do? He had no weapons or strength enough to fight back against the Casseticon. The only things he had available to him her sticks and stones…

The solution struck him in the head like a rock…

* * *

Spike got into position behind a fallen tree and carefully peaked over the hill until he could see both Sunstreaker and Rumble. Sunstreaker had barricaded himself behind a tree that also appeared to be working as a makeshift support. His blaster was gone. Rumble took no cover, merely strode around the clearing with his optics fixed on Sunstreaker's tree and the bits of him sticking out from behind it.

"You got a lot of nerve fighting in that condition Auto-boob," taunted Rumble. "You can barely stand!"

Rumble aimed his weapon and fired a single shot that caught Sunstreaker below the shoulder. Sunstreaker bite back the cry of pain, growling viciously against the pain of the smoking wound. A grin spread across Rumble's face as he laughed at the Autobot's pain and taking a sick sort of satisfaction from seeing the metal of another Cybertronian being blasted off piece by piece. The Decepticon was playing with him.

Spike waited. Rumble needed to be in the right position for this to work…

Striding forward a bit, Rumble took aim again. "This is just too easy. You think you did that Human slug a favor by saving it? You should've just let me shoot him. So now instead of making it quick and easy you doomed 'im to death by exposure…"

Just a little more…

"I hear that's a rough way to go."

Now! Spike rose up and threw the rock. It sailed through the air silently before striking Rumble in the side of the face. The impact startled more then harmed the Decepticon, but harm was not entirely Spike's aim. Not yet.

With a growl Rumble whirled to face his attacker and seeing Spike, made a dash up the hill. "I'm gonna kill you meat-wad!"

Every instinct told Spike to run, but for any of it to work he had to stand his ground. He needed Rumble to get closer. Indeed the enraged Decepticon was gaining speed and was closing in with frightening speed. Waiting for the last possible moment, Spike jumped forward and push his body against the tree log. For a horrifying moment the log did not move but slowly it began to give and with one last good shove it slipped over the top of the hill and began to careen towards Rumble. The Decepticon must have thought the log was no threat to him because he did not move and was then thusly smashed beneath it with a glorious crash. Trees may not be as dense as Cybertronian metal, but one rolling fast enough could certainly do a bit of damage. Spike jumped to his feet and looked down in time to see the downed 'Con slowly rise to his knees where he spent several moments waiting for the world to stop spinning. Once he had regained his equilibrium, Rumble's ire was directed towards Spike.

In hind sight, Spike felt a little more then foolish at thinking that one hit by a log would deal with Rumble for good. But it had seemed so brilliant a few moments ago…

Without waiting for Rumble to make the first move, Spike ran back the way he had come and back into the deeper part of the forest. For several yards there was no sound but the rapid beating of his heart. Just as the notion of whether or not Rumble was in fact following crossed his mind there came a great crash of limbs and a roar of outrage. There could be no mistake Rumble was at his heels and it fueled his feet to fly faster across the forest undergrowth.

He leaped over fallen trees and roots and made sharp and abrupt turns down creeks and gullies. He felt little pain as adrenaline and simple shock numbed him from everything, even the cold. It was only when he had no more breath to run did he slow and stop, gasping thirstily for the cold misty air that smelled and tasted of wet leaves and dirt. Destitute of all energy, he looked around to see if Rumble was still behind him. He was not. So he had evaded the enemy, but now found himself inescapably lost, even more then he had been moments prior.

The longer he stood there to catch his breath, the more he seemed to tire. Eventually he sat down and wedged himself between two large tree roots and looked up. The barest hint of sky was visible between the outstretched foliage of the surrounding trees and there was still moisture that hung in the air.

Wet, bruised, and tired Spike drifted off to an uneasy sleep.

* * *

The moment Sparkplug realized Spike was not beside him the barest hint of disquiet formed within his mind. When he saw the Decepticons take to their, some clutching brightly glowing Energon cubes, he decided it safe to return to the Dam and rendezvous with the Autobots. He found them gathered to one side of the damn as the injured were corralled into a group for Ratchet and Wheeljack to assess. He did not see Spike and his stomach twisted itself into a firm knot. He saw Bumblebee standing near Mirage and he made a bee line for them.

"Bumblebee," he called as he jogged the rest of the way. Bumblebee stopped his conversation with Mirage and turned towards the approaching human. Sparkplug could not completely mask his growing anxiety. "Have you seen Spike anywhere?"

Bumblebee did not answer right away, but instead looked to Mirage who shook his head, an answer to a unspoken question.

"Well, no," admitted Bumblebee at last. "I thought he was with you."

"He was," said the human. " But we got separated when everything went to hell when it did."

Bumblebee's brow furrowed as he too began to worry. If Spike was not with them then where could he possibly be? It was no secret Bumblebee had very much taken a liking to the younger humanoid and after the relatively short time they had known each other, the yellow scout was becoming quite endeared to Spike. Mirage and Bumblebee turned to their cohorts and began to ask around, but no one seemed to have recalled seeing the boy.

"Sunny's missing too," Sideswipe said, voicing his owns concerns. "I saw him run off with Hound earlier, but he didn't meet back up. And he's not answering my hails either. Which is normal, but he'd let me know he wasn't dead at least…"

"You didn't do anything to make him want to ignore you?" Ironhide asked, more in jest. It appeared as though the older Mech was not one to worry about someone like Sunstreaker. He was a big bot and could handle his own. It was Sideswipe that needed to be watched.

Sideswipe thought for a moment. "Nothing like I don't normally do."

"Leaking lubricants…" Ironhide sighed in exasperation and shook his head.

"Hound's missing as well," Mirage added as he scanned the area with his blue optics. "They're likely together somewhere."

"Spike's probably with them too, don't worry," Bumblebee remarked to Sparkplug, trying to reassure the anxious father. "Hound will watch out for Spike."

"Let's hope so," Sideswipe chirped. "'Cause Sunny sure as slag won't."

"Neither Hound nor Sunstreaker are answering their comms," Mirage said grimly. "Something must have happened."

No one said it aloud, but the thought crossed everyone mind. If something happened to both Sunstreaker and Hound that caused them to loose communication capabilities then it did not bode well for Spike.

The oppressive atmosphere was near suffocating. Sparkplug felt the disquiet creep over and he wrung his hands as worst case scenarios began filling his head. "Please god no…" he murmured.

* * *

When he woke up he realized he couldn't feel his legs and he was shivering. The woods around him echoed with the songs of birds and other woodland creatures and yet it was still too quiet. Thinking he should probably try and head back the way he came and locate Sunstreaker he tried to lift himself up, but his legs buckled immediately and he was on the ground.

He was so cold and numb and everything throbbed. He was famished and horribly thirsty. The realization that there was no way they would be able to find him sank his heart and he began to feel scared.

"Dad," Spike called to the faceless woods. "Where are you?"


	8. Chapter 4 Part III

Author's Notes: Wow this took way longer then it should have. Sorry guys, the ending was maddening to write. Nothing seemed to work for a long time no matter how many times I wrote it out and I finally got it where I wanted it to go. You'll have to let me know if it worked. It could be better, but I don't trust myself to redo it again and leave everyone waiting for another update.

* * *

Chapter Six: Up a Creek Part III

* * *

The situation at the Dam was a slow progress as the human emergency services moved in to care for the workers who were wounded or simply in shock. One worker was pronounced dead at the scene and his sheet wrapped body was taken away as onlookers looked on forlornly, some taking a moment to say a prayer. The wounded Autobots were collected and hauled back by Ratchet, Wheeljack, and Optimus Prime as his Trailer was the only way to transport so many of their number back to base. The remaining Cybertronians were left to find their missing comrades with Optimus promising to return as soon as he made his drop off.

Just as a search team and basic plan began to take shape, a familiar figure appeared from out of the woods covered in dirt and looking in poor condition.

"It's Hound!" Ironhide called as he was the first to spot the scout emerging from the brush. As several relieved Autobots came to meet Hound, they saw he was covered in dents and in a sorry state overall. Before the exhausted Mech could even speak he found himself bombarded with questions.

"What happened?" asked Ironhide.

"Where'd you disappear to?" Brawn asked.

"And why weren't you answering your comm. link?" asked Mirage.

"Where's Sunstreaker?" Sideswipe demanded over the din.

Hound held out his hands to placate his fellow's questions. He was fatigued and in need of some rest. "Whoa, hold on just a tic. Let me get my bearings, guys." He turned to Sideswipe first. "Sunstreaker's fine, he's just stuck on a riverbank a little more then a mile downstream. He's in bad shape, but he's stable. Where's Ratchet?"

"He and Wheeljack left with Prime and the wounded about ten minutes ago," Bumblebee replied. "We were just getting ready to go look for you guys."

"Call him and let him know we'll need him to come back to help as soon as he can. The bank is remote and is only accessible by foot. It took me almost an hour to get here," Hound looked around as if looking for someone. "Where's Sparkplug?"

"I'm here," said the human as he walked into view, his face drawn tight as he waited for any news of his son. "Do you know where my son is?

"Spike's fine," Hound said and he could visibly see the change in the human's face and demeanor as all his fear and anxiety drained away in one large expulsion of breath, a relieved sigh. "He's with Sunstreaker on the river. We'll need to get him out of here as soon as we can though, he was soaking wet when I left him and this cold draft hasn't lifted nearly as much as I had hoped it would."

"What does that mean?" Bumblebee asked.

"If Spike's clothes are wet in this chill he could get hypothermic," Sparkplug explained. He glanced over towards the paramedics and wondered if he could persuade them to come with them or at least give them some blankets.

"And that's bad?" Sideswipe asked.

Hound turned to the group looking grim. "It means he could die."

* * *

When Spike was seven years old he ran away from home. He was angry at his Dad for missing the school play and he had wanted his Dad to come and see him on stage so very badly. Aglow in the theater lights as he recited his lines, his father would see him and be proud and love him. But his Dad never came and Spike had been so mad. Feeling hurt and betrayed, Spike had grabbed his bike and rode off. He had never ridden beyond the block and he reached the end of what he knew. A cross walk lead into the beyond and when it turned green he hesitated, scared of what lay beyond the sidewalk and away from his home and family and all that was familiar.

The thought of his Dad and the empty seat beside his Mom decided him. With zealous determination he rode across the walk and down the untamed streets of suburbia. He had felt free and alive and away from it all. The day was still young when he had left but before too long dusk had settled in and it grew very cold. Spike had forgotten his jacket on the kitchen table and now regretted it. The street lights came on as twilight began to fade and real fear began to dig itself into young Spike's mind. He stopped his bike and sat down on a Bus bench. The cold only intensified as time slipped on into the dark.

A bus pulled up and stopped. A man in a black coat with a yellow scarf stepped off and spotted the young boy sitting alone with a bike leaning against the bench. As the bus pulled away the man approached Spike with an air of concern.

"What are you doing out here all by yourself?" asked the man. Spike began to cry and through sobbing tears told the man he had run away but wanted to go home and he was sorry. The kind man walked Spike and his bike to the nearest gas station where he called his parents. Fifteen minutes later his Mothers car pulled up and his parents barreled out of it and ran to their son, scooping him up into their arms and holding him tightly. His Mom was crying and his Dad looked very tired as if he had not slept for days. They thanked the kind man and took Spike and his bicycle home.

The odd memory slowly lifted like a receding fog and when he opened his eyes he was not home or in his Mom's car or even at the bus stop. He was laying against a tree in the dark woods, cold and wet. His breath was shallow and his arms were clutched to his chest and he was shivering uncontrollably. His body seemed to be vibrating and it took a lot of concentration to merely open his hands. His heart seemed to be beating a mile a minute and the sense of panic seemed to overtake him. He was alone, hurt, and so very tired. He was afraid.

But there was no kind man in a warm wool jacket to come guide him by the hand and his Mothers car wasn't going to come take him home. His Dad wasn't coming. No one knew where he was. Rumble could still be out there, searching for him. If the Decepticon found him…

The world it seemed had fangs and they were bearing down on him. Spike closed his eyes and tried hard not to cry.

* * *

Cognition returned like dripping vicious goop. Slowly and without any real sense of organization, his systems responded to override codes and the first sound he heard was Mirage yelling for Sideswipe to stand back.

"For the last time, this is delicate work Sideswipe," the High Tower Mech chided. "Bad enough Ratchet's not here to do it. If you want to help your brother you'll keep your vocalizer shut and out of the way!"

"Sunstreaker? Sunny can you hear me?!" Sideswipe clearly wasn't interested in what Mirage was saying. Typical.

Everything felt wrong, bent and twisted and dented. There was pain, but not as much as he expected. Which was not an entirely good thing. The panels on his arms were ripped to scraps and his left shoulder felt like it's been ripped from it's bearing and right then it was pressed against a tree and was causing him some distress. With a groan, he shifted to ease the pressure on his lame arm. With his movement the crowd that had encircled him stilled, worried optics focused on the gold warrior as he came to long enough to gargle something very incomprehensible.

Sideswipe pushed past Mirage to sit next to his twin. "What was that Sunny?"

"Dhn…d-duuhhnn…climeh…dun'cal meh…sunn..iee…"

"What?"

"Duhn…call me…Sunny…"

Sideswipe pulled away from his brother, momentarily stunned before bursting into giggles. "Oh yeah. He'll be fine."

Ironhide scanned the melee warrior and shook his head at the sight. He was a right sorry mess. "Whoo boy, I tell you Ratchet's not gonna be happy to see your shiny metal chassis," Ironhide remarked. "You're pretty messed up there boy."

"Ratch's…never h'ppy…t'see me…"

"Sunstreaker," Hound broke in, stepping in beside Sideswipe with a worried expression fixed upon his face. "What happened here? Where's Spike?"

Sunstreaker looked past Hound and scanned the faces of those around him and found himself taken back at the very real concern etched into their faces. For whom the concern was meant Sunstreaker could only surmise, but he had a good sense it wasn't him. Standing a little ways off from the clutter of feet was Sparkplug, the same kind of concern expressed on his own face but buried beneath a layer of fear.

He didn't know what to make of it. He wiggled against the tree, trying to sit up a little straighter and ease the pain of his shoulder a little more. "Frg'n Rumble…ambushed me…tried t'kill the kid…got away though. Told'im ta run…Didn't have'ta energy t'fight the scrapling…kid came back an'…hit th'creep w'a log…"

"A what?" Sideswipe asked.

"A log…a'tree. Rolled'it offa th'hill…W'nt after'm again…none of'm came back…"

Hound moved away to allow Mirage more access to Sunstreaker and then turned to Ironhide. "Start searching the area. They couldn't have made it very far."

* * *

He wasn't sure exactly why he had woken up and immediately wished he hadn't. It was getting colder and he couldn't feel his toes of fingers or his face. Looking around for whatever might have made the noise he saw nothing. Birds seemed to be absent and there was a disquieting stillness about the area. He felt compelled to try and fall back to sleep when he heard it again. It sounded…

…it sounded like his name.

His breath stilled and he listened. For a moment he felt despair that what he heard was just his own thoughts, but he heard it again, louder this time and not from one source. He heard several echoing voices bellowing his name.

"Spike!"

"Answer us kid! Where are ya?"

"Spike!"

The darkness around his thoughts lifted abruptly and with strength he should not have had he rolled onto his side and used the tree trunk to pull himself up. His knees threatened to buckle under him, tired and frozen, but he wobbled forward only to catch himself on a tree root and fall into the dirt.

"Spike! Can you hear us?"

No, he wasn't going to go down like this. He was close…so close…he could hear them. He could hear their feet smashing into the ground; he could feel the vibrations in the mud soaked earth…

"Son! Spike! Answer me!"

A shot went through his heart at the sound of his Dad's voice and with a phantom energy he hauled himself up, arms screaming in offense and his whole body shaking as he did so. He felt like he was going to shake apart at any moment, but decided he could fall apart after he was found.

"D-dad…dad…" he tried to yell but his voice was so hoarse it came out as just as a whisper. He kept trying as he wobbled from foot to foot. "D-dad! Dad!"

The rustling and calling stilled for a moment and when it returned he knew he had been heard.

"Keep calling Spike, we'll find you!" Hound. Spike could not keep the goofy grin from his face. He had kept his promise to come back.

"Spike! Keep calling!"

"We hear ya!"

He felt such hope rise in him felt the urge to cry but this time for a completely different reason. He yelled as loud as his voice would allow. "HERE!"

A flash of movement caught his eye and he spotted Hound off in the distance, his green armor making it hard to distinguish the Mech from the surrounding trees. Then red filled his vision and suddenly Ironhide was in front of him. The large Mech crouched down beside him and caught the smaller being just as his knees gave way to exhaustion and gravity. "Easy there," Ironhide said as he stood. "We got ya kid. You're safe."

"What…what happened to Sunstreaker?" Spike asked.

"He'll be OK," answered Ironhide. He turned his head and bellowed to someone over his shoulder. "I got him! Bring the stuff!"

There was a flurry of activity as the search party gathered around. When Sparkplug arrived, Ironhide lowered the boy down so that he could grab onto Spike's hand. He wouldn't let go.

The sense that he would be alright washed over Spike and the sense of safety was palpable on his lips. He would have gladly fallen asleep, secure in knowledge that the worst was over, but his father demanded he stay awake, unwilling to risk any complications. Once several large wooly blankets had been wrapped tightly around him, Ironhide ordered Tracks to fly both Spike and his father to the nearest hospital.

Spike had expected to hear loud protests against having to cart them around, but was surprised to hear no such gripes voiced by the normally flaunty Corvette. The flight was quiet for the most part as Sparkplug simply watched his son sprawled across Track's back seat wrapped in layers of wool.

Safe. Alive.

Tracks said little to nothing and they arrived at a hospital within minutes.

Once the situation had been explained to the baffled nurses, Spike was loaded onto a gurney and taken inside where hot water bottles were then unceremoniously shoved into his arm pits, under his legs, and pressed up tightly against his sides. He was given a thorough examination by a doctor with very large sideburns and once it had been discerned that there were no apparent life threatening complications, Spike was settled into a room to rest and recuperate.

* * *

The day had slipped away into night when Sparkplug took the opportunity whilst Spike was resting to get some air and a moment to himself. The hospital was small but accommodating which suited him just fine. He stood quietly at the entrance to the lobby, looking up at the night sky. It was pitch black. No star or Moon to be seen this night as the cloudy overcast had stayed into the night and likely the next morning. It was still frosty enough to be uncomfortable and anyone without a jacket would wisely return inside, save for perhaps those with a cigarette addiction that compelled then to stand the chilly weather, coat or not. However, Sparkplug ignored the prickling of his skin and the urge to shiver. The cold felt fresh and liberating. It helped to clear his mind after having many hours in silence in which to think.

The darkness was disturbed by the glow of a pair of high beams flashing from the parking lot. The man glanced over and saw an ambulance. This being a hospital, such a vehicle would be expected, but Sparkplug new by now that there were tell tale signs that revealed so much more. The red sigil was hard to discern through the gloom, but he knew it was there. He shoved his hands into his pockets and made the trek across the asphalt to the driver side door which opened for him of its own accord. As he knew it would.

"Surprised to see you here," said Sparkplug in lieu of the customary salutations as he pulled himself inside and closed the door behind him. It was unnecessary as it would have surely been done for him, but some things were simply second nature and without cognitive thought. "Shouldn't you be at base patching Goldilock's ass back together?"

"I got him stabilized and put him in stasis for his systems to recalibrate," replied the ambulance matter-of-factly. "Wheeljack's taking care of the walking wounded. I came by to check up on the scraplet."

Sparkplug took a deep intake of air, the smell of the alien in which he sat wafting through his sinuses, and let it out as a long sigh. The Autobots did not smell any different then any car would, but if he focused on it he could distinctly detect the smell of Energon. It was a scent he was becoming more and more aware of.

"He's doing better. The doctor said he'll make a full recovery, but they're keeping him overnight for observation and for some rest."

"They do not expect any complications then?"

"No," Sparkplug replied. "He had mild hypothermia so they have him wrapped up like Christmas up there. The boy's bruised to Jersey and back but nothing serious. He'll need to take it easy for a week or so, but he'll be back to normal soon enough."

"Good. He better not expect any sympathy from me when he's back on his feet though. I checked his work on the last assignment. That boy needs to learn how to properly connect circuitry lines to the processor. Had he done the same work on a real Mech as he did on that pile of scrap he'd have killed someone."

Tired and drained as he was, Sparkplug laughed. "I told him he was mixing the lines up."

"Have him label the damn things if it'll help him remember," replied the medic, but lacked any real heat.

"All things considered, I'd say Autobot X is coming along pretty well."

"Autobot…X?"

"What?"

"You named that pile of trash?"

"Yeah. Why? You don't like it?"

"I'm not questioning the choice of moniker rather the choice to name it at all."

"It's a human thing I guess. We name inanimate objects all the time."

"…how bizarre."

"I know, I know. Weird human stuff right?"

"To say the least. What does Spike have to say about it?"

"He's the one who came up with it."

"Ah. That's explains it a bit more." Sparkplug grinned, muffling a chuckle as he wiped a hand across his face.

A blanket of stillness seemed to lay across him then, the amusement drained away slowly and the man wiped at his face again, but this time it seemed more of a nervous inclination. Curious, Ratchet scanned the human as he often did, mostly without their knowledge, and was not so surprised at what the data told him.

Sparkplug was scared.

"I'm a fool," the man said breathlessly and filled his lungs with a long intake of air which he released at once in a dramatic sigh. He leaned forward as if suddenly fatigued and pressed his forehead to Ratchet's steering wheel. The medic did not say anything, knowing that in that moment the best thing he could do for the human – his friend – was to stay silent and listen. Which, admittedly, Ratchet was not accustom to doing. Hound was more of a listener then him. But Ratchet was resolved. "I thought I knew what I was doing. I didn't even bother think about what could happen…"

"What do you mean?" asked the medic.

"I'm a very selfish man Ratchet," said Sparkplug in a small ashamed voice.

"That's not…"

"Yes it is. I was the one who told Prime we'd tag along with you guys. I was the one who decided to dive head first into this shit storm. Spike was just following my lead. I never even stopped to think…" He sucked in a quivering breath and hunched his shoulders, gripping onto the steering wheel tightly. "I'm such an idiot! And my stupid selfishness nearly got my boy killed!"

Ratchet did not reply. He could not think of anything to say. The situation was familiar and alien to him all at once and he was at a loss for words.

"And I promised her…I promised his mother I'd take care of him. On her death bed! I promised her…and I nearly lost him too."

There was something in that moment that made Ratchet feel a strong sense of responsibility. Despite all his misgiving towards the humans, allowing them to insert themselves into the throng of their war, they had surprised him. They were remarkably strong yet fragile, brave and scared and reckless. They were small and helpless, but beheld a surprising defiance towards their weaknesses. Where Megatron saw greasy, insignificant, cowardice insects befitted only to slavery or eradication, the Autobots saw innocence and bravery and resiliency. They saw a part of themselves. Optimus had once shared a theory with Ratchet as to why Megatron held such distain for the human race.

"They frighten him," said the commander.

Ratchet had scoffed at the idea. "Megatron? Afraid of Humans? I'd eat my own skidplate."

Optimus Prime leveled a calm stare towards the medic, blue optics portraying an ancient knowledge and wisdom through their depths. "Megatron is not a complicated being Ratchet. He's clever, but not complicated. The Humans aren't so very different then we, only biological and superficial aspects distinguish our people. I think Megatron knows that and it scares him a little."

"Why? No human could take him on."

"True. Neither a single human nor an army would prevail. But an entire planet..."

"Your faith in the natives is astounding Prime," replied Ratchet acidly. "It'll get you killed one day."

"I know what Humanity is capable of Ratchet. For good or bad. As does Megatron."

Ratchet had not put any sort of merit to Prime's words then and as he sat on his axels in the hospital parking lot allowing a mature male Human being to bare his soul to him, he felt justified in his original hesitancy to accept the humans into their midst. His programming and logic relays were telling him that he should convince Sparkplug to sever ties with the Autobots and try to savage his normal life with his son. The war would go on with or without their involvement. But his Spark…

His Spark was telling him something completely different.

And most surprisingly of all, Ratchet decided to listen.

"Sparkplug," said the medic gently. He waited until he received confirmation that the man had heard him when Sparkplug slowly sat back in the seat, looking on expectantly. "I can't tell you either way that your choice was right or wrong. I can't tell you that it's not your fault for risking you and your son's life to help us. But I can tell you this: As long as you stand by us, we'll stand by you. Whether I like the idea or not, you two seemed to have wiggled yourself into our little troop and as long as you stay, we'll look after you. I can't promise you nothing bad will happen. This is war, I don't need to tell you the messy details. But I can promise you that as long as it's in our power to do so, we will never let anything bad happen to you or your son. You have my word as an Autobot."

Sparkplug was silent for a long while then, staring at the dashboard. Then in a small voice, cracking with emotion, he said, "Thank you."

And then much to Ratchet's dismay, Sparkplug began to cry. But in between the man's sobs, Ratchet heard the man repeat his gratitude over and over like a mantra. "Thank you….thank you…thank you…"

"Don't worry," he told the human. "You're one of us. And we take care of our own."

* * *

Author' notes: Sappy ending is sappy! Sorry guys, it just felt right to end it that way.


	9. Chapter 5

Author's Notes: I'm not dead!

* * *

**Fragility.**

There was something strange going on. Or at least that was what Spike sensed. It started off simple enough, small things that by themselves meant nothing. Soon however, those odd little changes became noticeable. Mostly because there were just so many of them.

It started off with Ironhide of all Mechs. Normally he did not give a gasket if Spike watched him fire endlessly at a holographic target displayed at the far end of the firing range. However, as of late, Ironhide began to recommend Spike spend his time in the lab with his father and Wheeljack, repairing odd ends around base and to stay away from all rapidly discharging blasters. His reasoning was more or less that Spike's presence threw off his concentration. Spike knew a brush off when he heard one and decided Ironhide might have just been in a sour mood and didn't want to have him around when he took his aggression out on the wall. In any case, Spike did not put much though into the occurrence.

That was until Hound refused to allow him to accompany him on one of his many nature walks. Spike was one of the first to recognize Hound's utter fascination with Earth fauna and felt it his obligation as an Earth native to show his world to Hound. Even though Spike knew almost nothing about the native plants or how photosynthesis actually worked. The nature walks had always been a calming venture for the two of them and on many occasions Bumblebee accompanied them. Even Jazz had tagged along a time or two but decided in the end his fascination with Earth was more of a cultural nature and the natural world was just a tune to which he could not dance. So when Hound told Spike one day that he was simply going to make a few laps around the base before heading off on patrol and that there was no need for him to accompany him, it made Spike a little suspicious.

So he began to keep a mental log of such happenings.

There was Prowl who made a point on several occasions to tell Spike that he should cease his habit of 'scaling the computer consoles' as he put it. Stating that it was dangerous and the likelihood of him falling was substantial and he could sustain serious injuries from a fall of a mere six feet. Spike would have retorted but Optimus Prime has been in the room at the time and it didn't feel wise to argue with his Second while he was present. So he just made note of it and climbed down off the counter like a good boy.

Then there was the next day and Wheeljack not offering to watch him activate his newest invention which he always made a point to do. Spike had always thought of it as a way for the scientist to show off without seeming to obvious about it. Science to Wheeljack was what breath was to Humans, it was life. And for Wheeljack it meant showcasing any and all results such breath brought to life. Despite the high probability the resulting life would be cut short by an unforeseen malfunction and consumed by the consequentially impressive display of pyrotechnics. Although he did not let anyone know, Spike did feel a bit hurt by that one…he liked Wheeljack's pyrotechnics.

* * *

"But that makes absolutely no sense!"

"Of course it does," Wheeljack replied. "It's a simple matter of physics…"

Spike shook his head. "If a meteor fell out of the sky and landed outside it'd be a million degrees! I'd melt if I touched it!"

Wheeljack did not have much in the way of facial expression, but his vocal enthusiasm and body language more then made up for any handicap. "Ah, therein lays your problem, Spike. You're assuming that the friction caused by entering the atmosphere would create heat greater then the temperature of the object prior to falling. In fact, the temperature of a meteor that falls to earth ranges from minus 240 degrees Celsius to absolute zero and even accounting for the heat from friction, by the time it makes landfall, the meteorite will still be far too cold to be safely touched by human hands. In actuality it would give you frost bite rather then melt you."

Spike sat atop one of the work tables in the one of the spare labs, its surface covered in bolts and nuts and curls of wires, arms crossed and brow furrowed. Across the room sat Bumblebee who had come to Wheeljack to have his blaster recalibrated and as was his want, Spike had tagged along. Bumblebee seemed to be the only Mech of late who was not treating him any differently since his adventures in the mountains.

Upon seeing his human friend's utterly puzzled expression, Bumblebee laughed and turned to Wheeljack. "'Jack I think you really broke him this time."

"Let me put it this way," Wheeljack offered. "It's cold in space. Unimaginably cold. So cold that molecules are almost frozen solid. When molecules are frozen completely and do not move at all, that is what your species refers to as absolute zero, which is calculated as minus 273 degrees Celsius. A meteor entering Earth's atmosphere is really really cold. So cold that even though it heats up several hundred degrees upon entrance, it still would not be enough to make it 'a million degrees'."

"Ok…" Spike still did not look convinced. "I get it a little…I think…"

"Simply put," said Ratchet as he entered the room, arms laden with a replacement lubricant pump, hydraulic joint fasteners, and some sort of dampener. He made his way over to an empty work table and unloaded his arms resulting in a cacophonous explosion of noise as metal crashed into metal. "Don't touch any space debris. That way all your bases will be covered and we won't have to rush you to St. Vincent's for the umpteenth time. I'm sure Dr. Parr would appreciate that."

Spike furrowed his brow as he processed what Ratchet has just said. "How do you know my Doctor's name?"

"We've met." Said Ratchet simply.

"What?" Spiked asked, bewildered at the assertion. "Really? When?"

The medic turned to lean against the work table and crossed his arms. "Considering the number of times we've ungraciously dumped your bruised and broken skid plate into his lap at three in the morning I thought it more than fair practice to give the man an honest explanation."

"Isn't that like…breech of policy or something? Aren't you guys like…I dunno. Classified?"

Ratchet snorted. "Hardly, not with our little tiffs with the Seekers making the six o'clock news every night."

Spike's head spun. "Really? Wow, how'd I miss that...?"

From his seat across the way, Bumblebee snickered and added in his own chips. "Tracks was on the cover of a tabloid last week and all he's been talking about since is how primitive Human photo technology failed to capture his 'truly gracious visage'."

"Humanity wouldn't be able to create a camera large enough for all of Track's ego," wagered in Wheeljack, earning himself a genuine grin from Ratchet. "Besides, everyone knows he has several hundred copies stashed under his berth. He loves the attention."

Spike could not help but grin himself as he recalled a very distinctive incident earlier in the week that had Tracks snarling at Prowl for some odd reason. Spike had not stayed around to find out, but he had a good idea of what it was about. And he found it more then amusing. "It's no wonder he's the only one who can fly without a jet pack, he's so full of hot air."

The three Autobots laughed, enjoying their little Tracks bashing circle. It was a nice moment to have everyone (even Ratchet) smiling and laughing for once.

With the feeling in his legs beginning to ebb from his non-mobility, Spike decided to rise and stretch his feet to get the blood flowing again. However, as he stood his foot became entangled in a spool of wires and as he tried to free himself, he lost his balance and fell to the side. He winced, expecting an unpleasant meeting of shoulder and table top that never came. Instead, his chest lurched with dread when he realized the table was not under him, but above him. The room spun and his heart leaped into his throat, confusion and terror blinding him to everything except the loud thought of 'Oh shit!'

Then the whirl of fear and confusion lurched and swung, leaving him with a dizzying upside down view of the lab.

Sound was the first thing to return, filled with startled cries of the three present Autobots; Bumblebee calling his name, Wheeljack asking if he was alright, and Ratchet…who was yelling something that Spike couldn't quite catch. It was after a moment that he realized that he was hanging upside down and the pressure on his left leg told him he'd been saved by the very wire that had caused his fall to begin with. He was too winded to really think straight and his first cognitive thought was 'How do I get down?'

An answer came in the form of a pair of hands pressed to his back which lifted him up. The wire still tight on his leg dangled over the side of Wheeljack's hands, weighed down by a metal plate on the table.

"Whoa," Spike said in a daze. "That was wild…"

"No," Ratchet snarled. "That was careless. You could've cracked your skull wide open!"

"Are you alright?" Bumblebee asked from beside Wheeljack as he carefully lowered Spike back onto the table.

Dizzy from adrenaline, Spike nodded. His head was still spinning. "Nothing broken."

"It could have very easily bee the opposite," Ratchet added heavily. "Are we going to have to require you to wear protective gear at all times? Or should we just by pass all that and tape you up in bubble wrap?"

"Oh, lay off him Ratchet, it was an accident," Wheeljack replied as he fetched a pair of clippers from the work bench. Carefully he snipped the cable from the metal plate which allowed spike to untie the knot around his leg.

"Exactly. He needs to be more aware of his surroundings. Stupidity has a high mortality rate."

"Sideswipe's still alive," Bumblebee offered in an attempt at lightening the mood.

"Only because Primus cursed me with fantastical medical programming and common sense. Which, by the way, far too many of you lot seem to be lacking. Case in point, Suicidal Spike over here."

Perhaps it was the adrenaline or Spike was just feeling particularly snarky, but he had decided that he'd had enough. "Would you stop it already? I get it! Stupid fragile human can't walk three steps without falling off of something! Could you just shut up about it already?"

If there was one thing Ratchet could do as well as he could fix things, it was argue.

"If you're tired of being lectured on the subject perhaps you should consider NOT FALLING OFF OF TABLES!"

Spike met the medic's sizzling glare and rose to his feet as Wheeljack and Bumblebee stood by speechless. "Or you could just get off your high horse and LEAVE ME ALONE!"

And with that, Spike leapt off the table onto a seat and then onto the floor where he tried to storm out of the lab dramatically, but he had landed awkwardly on one foot and ended up limping out.

"You see?" Ratchet crowed. "You're careless and just leap about like you're invincible! Do you have any idea what you could have just done to yourself with that stunt there?"

As he reached the door way, Spike whirled around to meet the medic's optics. "Shove it up your exhaust!"

"Stubborn whelp!"

"Jackass!"

The two combatants turned face and left the room. Ratchet exiting through the back door that connected to the Medbay and Spike through hall entrance with a slight limp.

Both Wheeljack and Bumblebee were left to wonder exactly what they had just witnessed.

* * *

He found his Dad in the spare workshop fiddling with the head of their project Spike had so lovingly named Autobot X as it lay motionless atop a medical berth. A work table had been pushed up close to it for easy human access and part storage. The body itself was a mishmash conglomerate of spare parts, junk, and pretty much anything they could find, restore/repair, and install. It had been a long project intended as an anatomical aid through their lessons on Cybertronian repair, but despite its aesthetic discrepancy the pair of them were quite proud of their creation. Sparkplug had even entertained the idea of perhaps one day activating it. However, Wheeljack politely informed them that unless they could get their hands on a working processor component, activation would be nothing but a dream.

However, once Sparkplug latched onto an idea, it rarely remained in his head. And as it was, Sparkplug was hard at work trying to repair severed synapse links in a broken processor component he had salvaged from Wheeljack's junk pile.

When his son entered the room and sat heavily beside him, Sparkplug looked up.

"Something the matter son? You look upset."

Spike growled and shifted where he sat, feeling anxious and in need of something to break. "Nothing. Just Ratchet being an ass."

Sparkplug raised one eyebrow. "Oh? You two get into it, then?"

"A bit. He can be such a Mother Hen at times it's maddening!"

"He's only doing what he's programmed to do."

"Yeah, well I'm sick of it."

Sparkplug spared his son a sympathetic look and placed his hand heavily upon the young man's shoulder. "Can't be help, son. It's just gonna have to keep and you're going to have to learn to deal with it. Life's full of people who will drive you crazy, good intentions be dammed, alien or not."

The adrenaline was beginning to ebb now and Spike felt a calm reassignment fall over him. It was only after a calmer mind had taken over that he realized the degree to which he had overreacted. It wasn't really Ratchet he was mad at. Not entirely anyway. Ever since the incident at the Dam, everyone was treating him differently. They were more careful, more cautious. They acted as though the slighted fall would kill him. He was not a china doll, something to be coddled and hidden away. It was not a secret that Humans were far more susceptible to injury and death then any of them, but it angered him to know that they didn't trust him not to kill himself walking down the hall. They didn't trust him. They didn't respect him. In his mind, it almost felt like they were trying to drive him away. And it made him feel wretched to think that the beings he considered friends and close allies would even consider the notion.

"What are you working on now?" Spike asked deflated, his thoughts having cooled his temper down into a depression of sorts.

His father took back up his tools and delved into Autobot X's cranium. "Connecting the synapses that control thought process and metal impulses. It's not hard. Just very very tedious and very very delicate work. It's amazing these guys have the patience for it."

Settling against Autobot X's arm, Spike allowed the calm room filter through him. But as his mind became clearer, a sense of regret and shame took over. Could it be that the Autobots were really trying to sever their ties with him and his Father? Were they that scared of them getting hurt? There should have been some semblance of comfort in knowing that, if true, the Autobots cared that much for their safety. But all Spike could think of was that after all this time they were still seen as small and fragile. Liabilities.

He wanted so much to be useful to them.

"Spike?" The meandering sands of his mind shifted and Spike eyed the door to see Bumblebee standing in the door way. As though he believed Spike might very well explode on him as he had Ratchet, Bumblebee seemed hesitant to enter without permission.

"Hey Bumblebee," said Spike trying to sound sincere, but came off more forced then intended.

His human friend's deflated demeanor was reassurance enough that it was safe to approach so Bumblebee made his way to the table. "I thought I would check up on you. You sounded pretty angry back there and I wanted to make sure everything was alright." A pause. "So, you alright?"

Spike sighed. He really had made an ass of himself in there. "Yeah, I'm alright. I didn't mean to get so angry. I just snapped. I couldn't help it."

The Autobot nodded, casting a glace over the pieces of mechanical paraphernalia. He gave a light chuckle. "Don't worry about it. I know what you mean. Ratchet can get a bit overdramatic sometimes."

Spike slumped, wondering if he should bare his soul to Bumblebee. Out of everyone at the Ark, the smaller Mech had always proven to be the best of confidants. "It's not just Ratchet..."

Sensing the boy's anxiety, Bumblebee could tell he was considering unburdening himself and any seasoned soldier knew it was never in anyone's interest to keep negative thoughts bottled up, especially the more poisoning sorts that could drive one mad. So he prodded.

"Go on," he said, answering the Spike's hesitant glance with a reassuring smile.

"It's just…everyone's been walking on eggs shells lately around me and I can't so much as sneeze without someone reprimanding me for being reckless. I'm not a baby! I can walk around without injuring myself, I don't need 24/7 surveillance to make sure I'm not doing anything that has a danger potential above 5%!"

This time, Bumblebee genuinely laughed. "I understand how that feels!"

With an inquisitive rising of his eyebrow, Spike asked, "You do?"

Bumblebee grabbed the chair situated beside the table and took a seat, sidling up to where Spike sat on the berth. "Sure I do. Here, I'll tell you a story. When the War first broke out, I had undergone my final upgrade more then a Vorn prior, so I was considered an adult. But because of my model type, no one had any confidence I would be able to perform on the battle field. So mostly I helped guard supply lines and things like that."

"But…why? You're a soldier just like them right?"

"Oh sure, it was just that at the time that the War began my model wasn't designed for combat. They just didn't want me to get my head shot off. I didn't see a hint of direct combat for a while. Eventually they put me in what they considered a 'low risk' environment which turned out to be a defense outpost on the skirts of Iacon. The outpost I was stationed at was put under siege during one of Megatron's razzing campaigns. The fort's commander had been killed on the field and that pretty much made our whole defense strategy fall apart and a lot of soldiers abandoned their posts. The 'Cons managed to break through the ramparts because of the disorganization of the defenses. Three others and I managed to escape through a break in the back wall during the chaos of the siege. We rounded the bulkheads to the fortified guns and turned them around onto the Fort. We stopped the siege and the Con's retreated."

"So what happened after that?"

"Well, our superiors were grateful we stopped the Decepticons, but they weren't at all happy with what those guns did to the fort in the process. Strategically, we essentially destroyed a vital defense outpost. Had the Decepticons overtaken it, we could have fought to get it back and it would have, to them, still be a viable defense point. They were about to court marshal us all when they received a command from the Prime that we were to be awarded medals of honor for actions of bravery and an order for all of us to be transferred to his personal unit."

Spike nodded, but felt he was missing the moral of the story. "So…"

Bumblebee leaned in and placed a hand on the human's back, looking him dead in the face. "So everyone's just worried about the possibility you're going to get hurt and they won't be there to save you and by their logic, all they're doing is minimizing the risk."

Feeling as though he finally understood his friend's point as well as a little more insight as for the reasons behind the Autobots' bizarre behavior lately, Spike nodded. He was satisfied with Bumblebee's explanation. For the moment anyway.

Feeling a bit cheeky, Spike grinned and added, "So does that mean I should expect Megatron to come along and wreck the place?"

"It's always a possibility," Bumblebee chuckled. "But my point isn't that you should expect trouble around every corner. What you need to remember is that there is danger out there and if you're going to help us then the best thing you can do is know how to respond to any present danger. Know your strengths and weaknesses, know your limitations."

"So no more diving off of tables," Spike added flatly, earning a hearty chuckle from the Autobot.

"Exactly," said Bumblebee.

It was then that Sparkplug, having overheard the entire conversation and had kept out of it, spoke up. He turned to his son, brandishing a wrench and his sternest Dad look. "What's this I hear about you jumping off of tables now?"

* * *

Author's Notes: Thank you for everyone who continues to read this as I take my darn sweet time updating. My life is hectic and busy right now and it's hard to find the energy -let alone time- to write so thank you very much for your continual support.


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